


Truths and Consequences

by orphan_account



Series: #OlicityWatch [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Bureaucracy, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Minor Character Death, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak breakup (again), Organized Crime, Season 5 was so much better than this story, Social Media, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, childfree Felicity, communication problems, hideous misrepresentation of city government, hideous misrepresentation of international organized crime, residual Bratva guilt - Freeform, residual Havenrock guilt, ridiculously detailed descriptions of cooking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 16:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7722316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being mayor is kind of hard. Ethics Codes. Planning Commission meetings. Corruption of city offices by organized crime. A social media that’s obsessed with your not-actually-existent love life. Night-time collaboration with your ex-fiancée...</p><p>Warning: Oliver and Felicity aren't officially "together" at the end of this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written during the summer after season 4, while I was trying to imagine how Oliver and Felicity would get back together. The epilogue was written late during season 5, after I realized that someone had recommended this fic (seriously, wtf?), and after I realized that this fic did not resolve the relationship issues nearly as well as season 5 did. In the epilogue, Oliver and Felicity break up again.
> 
> A few responses to comments.
> 
> \- Someone called this "romance." I think of "romance" as involving a lot of highly sexist tropes and limiting women to being love interests. I am ashamed to have written anything that would be categorized as "romance".
> 
> \- One commenter wished that the fic was longer. That was before I added the epilogue. Be careful what you ask for.
> 
> \- I kill off a popular woman character in this fic. When I wrote it, I hadn't yet counted just how many minor female characters had been killed off in canon. I am sorry to have contributed to the same sexism that infects the show.
> 
> \- The writing in this story really isn't very good. I started re-reading before orphaning it, but it is really an embarrassment.
> 
> The first chapter is probably teen? Higher ratings should make sense later.

The chair of the Planning Commission stopped Oliver before he could enter the room.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mayor. You’ll need to sit this discussion out.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Why? I’ve been sitting in commission meetings all week.”

“We’re considering the proposal from your fiancée. Your presence would violate rule IV.3.e of the City Ethics Code.”

Oliver frowned. “She’s not my fiancée. Not any more.”

The chair – what was his name again? Fonda? No, Fontana - looked at him sympathetically. “It would violate the spirit of the code, Mr. Mayor.” He started to pull the door closed, then paused. “And according to my daughter, who might be a little obsessed, it’s not going to be long before you’re engaged again. Ms. Smoak is, what, using your old campaign office as the headquarters for her start-up business?”

Oliver’s jaw worked, but no words came out.

“And according to Twitter, you’ve been seen there nearly every night. Do you know there’s even a hashtag #OlicityWatch?”

 _He’s tracking me on Twitter?_ Oliver thought.

“Have a good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.” The door to the conference room closed in Oliver’s face.

Oliver returned to his office and frowned at the stack of resumés sitting on his desk. He shifted them a hair to the right, then pulled out a notebook and opened it to a nearly full page. _Ethics Code,_ he added to the list, under _Qualifications for Police Commissioner_ and _Special Elections for Aldermen._ The list of things he needed to study was long, and growing. How did the job of “Acting Mayor” get more complicated than CEO? _Maybe because you don’t have an over-qualified assistant this time,_ said the voice in his head that, sometime in the past three years, had started to sound suspiciously like Felicity. He sighed and sat. Maybe this was good. He needed to take the time to look at those resumés and find someone to hire. Oliver opened the first folder and stared at it.

Five folders and no brilliant insights later, he put them aside, then pulled out his phone and tapped the Green Chef app. ( _That was Curtis’s idea,_ Felicity had explained, before he could start grumbling about it. Something about combining refrigeration and a slow cooker and a remote control app to allow busy-but-environmentally-conscious types to do their cooking while rooftop solar panels were working. The icon was silly, and it was just a prototype, but Oliver thought it had potential. Though if pressed, he would have to admit that he thought every one of Felicity’s ideas had potential.) Then he stared at the screen for a moment, and started downloading Twitter.

Oliver had no idea how long he had been looking through the photos when his phone chimed, warning him of his next appointment. He sighed and closed the app. It bothered him that he hadn’t noticed all the photos being taken. He should be more aware than that. But some of them... he hadn’t been in those places. Not with Felicity. Not in the past several months. Not standing like that. At least, he didn’t think so. His fingers tingled just imagining the feel of her hair.

He put his phone in his pocket and headed to a meeting with the last two surviving aldermen.

\-----

Oliver shifted the slow cooker to one arm to allow him to knock on Digg’s door. Well, Lyla’s door, now. He heard at least one voice shout to come in, so he did.

He paused for a moment just to watch. Felicity had a wine glass in one hand and was gesturing wildly with the other; he heard something about hackability and authentication and proxy servers. Lyla nodded along as she nursed her own glass of wine. Curtis was on the floor building something complicated from blocks. Sara watched, wide-eyed, and then knocked them down and tried to shove three blocks into her mouth at once.

Oliver put the slow cooker onto a table and dropped to the floor to take two of the blocks away.

Curtis grinned at him. “Hey, Oliver. Paul has a late shift at the clinic tonight, so Felicity invited me to join you. She may have mentioned that you’d be cooking.” He nodded at the pot. “How’s it working?”

Oliver transferred the blocks to his left hand, wiped the drool on his pants, and offered his hand to shake. “Good to see you, Curtis. And from what I’ve seen, it’s ready for the market.”

Lyla whisked the slow cooker to a counter and plugged it in. “It smells delicious. Oliver, are you going to write the recipe book once they start production?”

Oliver shook his head. “I have no idea if that’s allowed by the city Ethics Code.”

Lyla laughed. “Welcome to politics, Mr. Mayor. Where the talk is black and white to cover up the shades of grey.”

“Or other things.” Felicity frowned. “Something’s wrong. What’s wrong?” 

Oliver handed a block to Sara and stood up. “Someone’s been posting fake photos on Twitter.”

“Whoa, when did you get on Twitter?” Curtis stood and pulled out his phone. “@oqueen85 wasn’t taken? And why are you still a blue egg?” 

Oliver shook his head. “A blue what?”

“An egg. You really are a newbie, aren’t you? Here, give me your phone.” Curtis started tapping on it. “Don’t you have any mayoral-looking photos of yourself, Oliver?” 

“I’ve got one.” Felicity pulled out her phone, while Lyla looked over her shoulder and murmured approval. “And fake photos? Oliver, the Internet is full of fake photos. I know Thea has shown you her favorite cat memes.”

Oliver shrugged awkwardly. “Fake photos of me. Of... us.”

Felicity and Curtis shared a quick glance.

Oliver frowned at them. “You know about the photos?”

Curtis raised his hands in surrender. “We never meant for it to get this far. One day after you were sworn in, one of Paul’s Facebook groups started sharing pictures of ‘Mayor McHottie,’ and he asked why you were still going to the campaign office now that you were mayor. His friends were arguing about what you were up to, and he wanted gossip about whether you and Felicity were getting back together.” Curtis shrugged. “It was a good distraction. There are a lot of people taking pictures of you and sharing them on social media. Someday, someone might wonder why the Green Arrow always shaves on the same days that the mayor does. ‘StubbleWatch’ is a thing, you know.” 

“So you, what, planted fake photos?” Oliver frowned. “Wouldn’t somebody figure that out? Felicity always knows when photos have been faked.”

Curtis nodded. “That’s why Felicity helped.”

Oliver shook his head and spun towards Felicity. “What?”

Felicity gave him her most adorably guilty face. “It seemed like a good way to plant photos of Oliver Queen in places where the Green Arrow could never have been. Different places, same time. It’s not that hard to change geotagging and time stamps. But then the lighting and shadows need to be right, too. So...”

“... and people shared the photos more if Felicity was in them, too,” Curtis interrupted.

“The tag was NOT my idea, Oliver,” Felicity added.

Curtis nodded. “That was Paul. He gets really mad when #MostEligibleMayor is used more than #OlicityWatch.”

“But the point is, Oliver, that they’ve been very effective.” Lyla picked up Sara and wiped the drool from her chin. “There hasn’t been any chatter about you and the Green Arrow for a month. And the ARGUS photoanalysts are completely fooled. Felicity is good.” Lyla looked at her. “You know, if you want any other work, beyond the missile security contract, we’d be happy to hire both of you.” 

Felicity shook her head. “Fixing the missile security is my responsibility. But I also want to do work that helps this city more directly.” She set down her wine glass and took Sara from Lyla, while Lyla went to get plates. “I hope the Planning Commission approves the new plant soon. Experimenting with prototypes is fun, and there’s enough money in contract work to keep Curtis and I in business, but it would be nice to share the wealth.”

“More than with those college kids from Havenrock?” Curtis held up his hands. Oliver didn’t blame him. Felicity was wearing her Loud Voice Face. “Look, I get what you’re doing, and I told you that you’ve got my complete support. But trying to pay for college for a few hundred students whose families died? That’s a pretty big deal.”

“And another good reason to really get the company off the ground.” Felicity pressed her lips into a line that was so straight, it could be used to lay out a new street grid.

Oliver frowned. “The Planning Commission was going to discuss your proposal today, but they wouldn’t let me stay. Something about ethics rules.” He glanced at Felicity. “The chair’s daughter follows #OlicityWatch.”

Felicity at least had the sense to blush briefly before she set her chin and stared him down. “That isn’t surprising in the least, Oliver.”

“It’ll be ok,” Curtis said. “It’s a great proposal. She went through the entire building code before making the plans. It’s airtight.”

Oliver frowned. He’d learned the hard way not to trust when things seemed to be going according to plan.

“And Oliver, for once, I’d like this to be MY work. No questions. No rumors about getting promotions on my knees.” Felicity kept talking, despite Oliver’s attempt to protest. “Or worse. You know what they said, when Ray disappeared right after he signed the company over to me.”

Lyla walked through the group, carrying silverware. “Oliver, why are you going to Planning Commission meetings, anyway? I thought they were supposed to be independent of the mayor’s office.”

“I’m trying to figure out how the city government works. There are a lot of different toes that I could step on, and the mayor makes appointments to all sorts of different commissions. And it’s not like there’s a transition team – most of Ruvé’s staff is buried somewhere in the rubble beneath the city sewer. Which reminds me...” He pulled his notebook out of his pocket, opened it to the page labeled “Infrastructure,” and wrote _repair sewer before rebuilding._

“That’s a lot of work for one person to take on.” Lyla held out her arms for Sara, who was trying to take the elastic out of Felicity’s ponytail. “Haven’t you hired any staff yet?”

Oliver shook his head. “I haven’t figured out how to tell who to trust from a resumé.”

“As opposed to deciding who not to trust from your father’s book?” Felicity refilled her wine glass, and gestured with the bottle to the others.

Oliver shrugged. “To be honest, I have been using that to help decide who not to hire. But it doesn’t make recommendations.” He accepted the glass that Felicity was offering him, and set it on the table. “And most of the applicants seem equally qualified.”

“I’d give you advice, but my experience is a bit warped by working for Amanda Waller for so long.” Lyla carried a salad bowl to the table, and tilted her head towards the slow cooker. Oliver took the hint, and started serving. “I think Waller looked for people she could control, in addition to unusual skill sets.” She leveled a look at Oliver. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s how you escaped her – she couldn’t control you.”

Oliver shrugged again, and scooped a piece of chicken onto her plate.

\-----

Oliver and Felicity left at about the same time. Felicity paused beside Oliver’s car, and held the slow cooker while he opened the door.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Oliver tilted his head and waited for her to continue.

“About the fake photos, I mean. I should have told you about them. Should have asked your permission before we even started. And then I just...” She shrugged.

Oliver nodded. “It was a good idea. I was just... surprised.”

“And if you go looking for the handle @MayorMcHottie – which you wouldn’t, I know, you didn’t even make a profile picture or post ANYthing – but if you were to look for it, it’s taken already.” She raised her hands. A stranger might take it for surrender, but Oliver knew better. “That was Curtis. Not me. He grabbed it as soon as he heard the nickname. Didn’t want political enemies or random supervillains or crazed fangirls getting a hold of it.”

Oliver just smiled, carried away in the current of her babbling, until he saw a glint of light out of the corner of his eye.

Felicity didn’t look away from him. “There’s a photographer somewhere.”

Oliver kept facing her. “Yep.”

“I’ll get the photos later. This is a good spot – the skyline crops out easily, and the lighting could be anywhere. I’ve used photos from here before.” She paused and pulled out her phone. “That reminds me. I’ve got some of the city codes saved. I’ll send them to you, so you won’t need to hunt them down yourself.” She smiled. “Here I am, back to being Oliver Queen’s personal Internet researcher.”

He smiled back. “Your resumé’s too strong for that now.”

They stood for a moment, not sure what to say. Finally, Felicity turned away. “Good night, Oliver.”

He climbed into his car and waved one more time before closing the door.

_____

It was hard to fall asleep. Not as hard as it used to be, when every sound felt like a possible threat.

Still.

Oliver finally turned on a light, pulled out his tablet, and checked the files that Felicity had sent. Why she had saved the city’s Ethics Code, he had no idea. But it sounded like just the right kind of boring to help his mind settle. 

An hour later, he sat back, wide awake, frowning. There was no Rule IV.3.e. And there was nothing in the ethics rules about avoiding Planning Commission meetings that discussed proposals from one’s fiancée. Or ex-fiancée. Or rumored love interest.

\-----

Oliver had only gotten through 30 minutes of phone messages (and no e-mails) when his cellphone chimed for his first meeting. True, there were about a dozen messages from the same number, on an extended ramble about a government conspiracy to implement mind control in order to root out a secret alien invasion, but he didn’t feel like he could dismiss that out of hand after the past four years. Instead, he made notes to show to Felicity later.

It was nearly lunchtime before his next break. His mind was a whirlwind of sewer system repairs, problems with hiring enough police officers, and proposals for rebuilding sections of the Glades that had never fully recovered from the earthquake. The phone was blinking, his e-mail had another 20 messages, and a new set of meetings started at 1:30. Oliver barely had time to step out for coffee. He got through about half of his e-mails, but only by putting a lot of them into a “to deal with” folder. And then, after discussions of how to replace broken fire hydrants, he finally had a few hours to himself.

He picked up the stack of resumés and skimmed through them. This shouldn’t be such a big deal. Just a temporary hire. If he were elected in August, he could find someone more permanent. He chose three that fit all the qualifications, called their temp agencies, and set up interviews for the next day.

The city was quiet that night. He must have spent an hour between the salmon ladder and the wing chun dummy, while Felicity tapped quietly on the keyboard. When his muscles started to burn and his head started to clear, he dropped to the ground, grabbed a towel, and joined Felicity at the monitors.

“Anything?” he asked, frowning at the screens of text.

“The good news is that there’s no sign of an alien invasion, at least on this Earth. You’ll need to ask Lyla about the mind control. If it exists – not that I think it does, but four years ago I would have told you that magic hot tubs and creepy death icons and earthquake machines were impossible, too – IF it exists, you know Amanda Waller would have been experimenting with it.”

Oliver nodded. “That’s why I didn’t hang up. On any of the dozen messages about it.”

Felicity tilted her head at him. “You haven’t found an assistant yet, have you?”

Oliver shook his head.

Felicity nodded, as if she had won a bet with herself. “You got coffee at lunch today.” She paused. “Twitter wants to know what’s up.”

Oliver huffed a laugh. “I wouldn’t expect an assistant to get me coffee. I know better than that.” He raised his hands in self-defense at Felicity’s look. “Hey, I do learn some things.”

Her face softened. “I know. But you still need an assistant. At the very least, to sort through this.” She paused. “You should get a gym membership, too.”

Oliver’s heart thudded in his still-bare chest. No more workouts in the lair?

“I mean, not that you can’t work out here, because clearly you can. I mean, it’s obviously working fine for you. It’s just... there’s a lot of speculation on Twitter. Facebook, too. People wonder how you maintain all that...” She gestured vaguely at him. “...without working out. At least publicly. Your new place is too small for weights – the Internet found the last tenant, who swears there’s only room for beer and nachos, though from his profile picture, he needed a lot of beer and nachos. And, please, say something and stop just looking at me like that.”

Oliver huffed a laugh. “I’ll find something to do in public.”

“Good. I’ll be watching.” She shook her head. “I mean, not like here. Like on social media. To make sure that the right things get attention. Oh, you know what I mean.”

He just smiled.

“There isn’t much happening. Not even online. So if you don’t need anything, I’ll just...” She waved her arms towards the elevator.

Oliver shook his head. “Good night, Felicity.”

“Good night, Oliver.”

\-----

The next few days were busy, but the repetitive kind of busy that could dull one’s edge. One of the potential assistants, Anastasia, seemed perfectly competent, so Oliver offered her the job. She started on Friday, and began to sort through his e-mails with a terrifying yet valuable efficiency. By the last meeting with the teachers’ union, who were concerned about which schools would be able to open in the fall, it seemed like things were nearly under control. Anastasia even signed him up for a membership at a nearby gym – one that was reasonably secure and private. Things seemed good.

And so on Saturday morning, Oliver took Felicity’s advice and went for a run in public. Up the hill behind his apartment, down through one of the older residential neighborhoods, through the university campus, and into one of the larger parks. There was a somewhat run-down fitness trail with pull-up bars and steps to jump on, and he detoured through it to change his workout a bit. He had climbed halfway up a rope when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“It turns out that GPS tracking is completely unnecessary when the entire world is chronicling your run on social media.” Felicity was standing at the edge of a toddler playground.

Oliver raised his eyebrows. “You’re not usually out this early.” He blinked to try to erase a picture of her in bed, half asleep, pulling the covers over her face as he dressed for a run.

Felicity waved a coffee cup at him. “I’ve got provisions. Ready to take on the world.” She glanced back at the playground. Oliver followed her gaze and saw Sara, happily spinning parts of a huge plastic tic-tac-toe game beside the toddler slide. “Also, Lyla’s hairdresser apparently has 8 am appointments. Who knew those existed?”

“You’re watching Sara this morning?” Oliver considered punching himself for the obviousness of the question.

Sara toppled over, looked momentarily confused, and started to cry. Both Oliver and Felicity rushed to her side.

Felicity reached Sara first, and helped her back up. “One of my mom’s friends used to watch me at Caesar’s Palace sometimes, while Mom got her hair and nails done. Back then it just seemed like the way things worked, but when I saw how tired Lyla was, I realized that those mornings kept Mom sane.” She shook her head and spun a tic-tac-toe block to X. “For some definition of ‘sane’ that’s broad enough to include my mother.”

Oliver huffed a laugh, reached past her, and turned one of the blocks to O.

Felicity chose another X. “My father didn’t leave.”

Oliver half-shook his head in confusion. “He’s still in Star City?” _Was he a criminal or an ally? Should he be worried as mayor? Or as the Green Arrow? Or both?_

“No, he left before the world could end. I mean back then. When I was a kid.” She pointed at the game. “It’s still your turn.”

Oliver chose another O, not sure what to say. Even when they were together, even when they told each other everything ( _not EVERYTHING,_ reminded the voice in his head), Felicity never said much about her family history. Crazy stories about growing up in Vegas, sure, usually involving counting cards with Elvis impersonators or being embarrassed by her mother. But anything involving her actual feelings, not hidden by jokes? Those stories were rare.

Felicity spun an X. “My mother kicked him out. Sent him away. Told him to leave. Something like that. I don’t know the whole story.”

“Wow.” Oliver tried to find the right words while he put an O between two of Felicity’s Xs. “That’s... How did you find out?”

“My mother told me. After my father made some snarky comments while they were fighting. I didn’t really have a chance to process it, what with the imminent fiery destruction of the world and all.” She flipped a block. “I win. Did you actually fall for that, or did you just let me win?”

Oliver shrugged at all of it. “I’m not very good at tic-tac-toe.”

“It’s the simplest strategy game there is, though. How did you never learn it? I mean, I know you were a pretty oblivious kid...” She gave him a pointed look.

Oliver just shook his head.

“...But you were stranded on an occasionally deserted island. With sticks. And sand. And, you know, Sara Lance, who totally kicks my butt in tic-tac-toe.”

He shook his head. “It didn’t come up.”

Felicity wiped sand off of Sara Diggle’s face and looked at the time on her phone. “Lyla should be done with her hair by now. I should take this Sara home.”

Oliver held the diaper bag open while Felicity put Sara’s sippy cup and snack container away. As Felicity left, he realized that he had no idea what she had been trying to say about her parents.

He ran much farther than he had intended, trying to let his mind settle.

\-----

Around mid-morning on Monday, Oliver’s phone buzzed with a text from Felicity.

FS: _They denied the proposal._

FS: _The Planning Commission, I mean._

Oliver glanced at his schedule. He was free for another hour. He stood and walked to Anastasia’s desk. “I’ll be out of the office for a bit. Call my cell phone if there’s an emergency.”

 He was halfway through the line at the coffee shop when his phone buzzed again.

FS: _I need a double today._

Oliver glanced around, wondering who was even taking photos.

OQ: _Latte? Or is it a mocha kind of day?_

FS: _Latte._

Felicity was sitting in front of her computer, stone-faced, reading something when he walked into his old campaign office. Curtis was in a different room, talking rapidly on the phone.

“My first year at MIT, I had this horrible TA for Freshman Design. He didn’t think girls could do engineering, or math, or computers, or really anything except flash boobs at frat parties. We had this final project, and mine was brilliant. It solved the problem in a way that nobody had ever done before, it fit all the constraints for the project, and it could be made under budget.” She spun around in her chair. “He gave it back and said he couldn’t grade it. Said it wasn’t my work. Made me re-do it in a conventional way. And then, when the professor read the new version, he called it ‘pedestrian.’” She turned back to the screen. “That’s how this feels. Oliver, I can’t figure out what’s wrong with the proposal. But they told me to revise it and submit it again. With a new fee, though with the ARGUS consulting, that’s not a big deal.” She typed something – it looked like gibberish, but what did Oliver know – and spun the chair again.

Oliver silently held out the latte.

Felicity accepted it, breathed in the scent, and took a sip. “How is this still hot?" 

“I took a cab. Figured you needed this.”

She nodded. “Thank you. For thinking about coffee. For listening to the rant. For...” She frowned. “How did you get time in your schedule to get coffee this morning?”

Oliver shrugged. “I finally hired an assistant. No meetings until...” He glanced at his phone. “Until after lunch. We can talk more if you want.”

Felicity just shook her head. “How did they reject it? There isn’t any impact on the city infrastructure. We’ll be hiring people who already live in the city. We’re using an abandoned warehouse, and we’ve got a tentative contract for the building pending city approval. There were even blueprints for the renovation. Blueprints! On paper! Just like the city requires!”

“We’ll get it approved.”

Felicity glared at him.

“YOU’ll get it approved.” He raised his hands at Felicity’s skeptical look. “And I won’t pull any strings. Or put an arrow in anyone. I get it. This is yours.” He gave a hopeful smile. “But I can bring coffee, right?”

“Mmmm. You can always bring me coffee.” She smiled back up at him. Oliver’s heart grew a couple sizes.

And then Oliver’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen. “Sorry. It’s Anastasia – my assistant. I’ve got a new meeting scheduled in fifteen minutes. I need to get back.”

Felicity waved as Oliver hailed another taxi.

As he settled into the seat and gave the address of City Hall, his phone buzzed with a text.

FS: _Twitter wants to know if the mayor knows about Uber. Or Lyft, cause it turns out Uber is evil._

He smiled, sure for a moment that everything was going to end up right in the world.

\-------

Oliver rearranged the pens on his desk as he waited for the next meeting. There were only initials on his calendar: N.S., and no subject. That was surprising – Anastasia had been excruciatingly organized about everything else, to the point where his e-mails were categorized alphabetically by sender, topic, and related organizations.

The office door opened. Anastasia ushered in a man who was, on the surface, rather non-descript: middle-aged, average height, hints of grey in his brown hair, typical dark business suit. But his eyes were hard. Oliver’s instincts screamed at him as Star City’s mayor put on his most charming smile and stood to shake the man’s hand.

“Nicholas Salt,” the man said, holding Oliver’s hand a moment longer than was necessarily polite. “It is good to meet you at last, Mr. Mayor.”

“Nice to meet you too, Mr. Salt,” Oliver said. “Please have a seat and let me know what Star City can do for you.”

“I understand that you have a large number of open positions,” Salt began. “Such a tragedy for many. But an opportunity for some, as well.” Oliver stiffened as the man bent towards his briefcase, but when Salt sat up, he only had a sheet of paper in hand. “Here is a list of prospective applicants.”

Oliver frowned at it. “Thank you, Mr. Salt. My assistant, Anastasia, is tracking the applications, so please tell your friends to send a resume, cover letter, and any other documents necessary for the positions. We’ll let them know if we need to interview them.”

“I see.” Salt’s lips bent into something resembling a smile. “It must be difficult to run the city with so many positions unfilled.”

Oliver smiled a bit more widely and stared the man down. “We are doing the best we can.”

Salt nodded. “I trust you will give these applicants full consideration.” He stood to go. “I am looking forward to working with you, Oliver Robertovich.”

Oliver stood, fingers rubbing together, as the door closed.

\-----

“Hey. I got Chinese. There’s enough for you if you want some.” Felicity sat at the big table, gesturing with her chopsticks.

Oliver grabbed a box and sniffed it. “Do you want some of this, too, or is this all for me?”

Felicity shrugged. “It’s up to you. I know that’s your favorite.”

Oliver sat across from her and ate, silently, for a while. When Felicity put down her empty box, he said, “Would you be willing to hunt down some city information?”

“For Arrowing, or for Mayoring?” She threw the box into the garbage as she crossed to her monitors.

“I don’t know. Could you search for connections between city employees and organized crime? And sort them by which mayor was in office at the time?”

Felicity gave him a Look. “Either you’ve just remembered that our favorite Chinese place is a front for the Triad, or you’re trying to get dirt on the Planning Commission. Which, if I didn’t remind you enough this morning, is MY responsibility.”

Oliver shook his head. “Neither. Just a bad feeling, for right now. Could you check?” He took a breath. “Please?”

“For a ‘please,’ I would do almost anything, mister.” She spun her chair towards the screen.

Oliver swallowed, turned, and tried not to remember all of the things she had done to make him say “please.” When he finished his food, she was still typing, so he headed into the back to change into workout clothes.

He had only done four pull-ups when she stopped typing and looked up. “Your instincts are amazing. This is, if your instincts told you that every mayor has chosen appointees from a different organized crime group. Or barely organized crime; Sebastian Blood used a new gang from the Glades that provided test subjects to Slade, if the medical reports mean anything. But the mayor before him, Mayor Altman, was working with the Triad, and before that, the mayor hired a bunch of Frank Bertinelli’s people. And Celia Castle apparently liked the Norwegian mafia, which I never even realized was a thing. Can you call it a mafia if it’s Norwegian?”

Oliver dropped to the floor and shrugged.

“And with the appointments generally lasting for longer than the life span of the typical mayor – which is long compared to most insects, but short compared to a Defense Against Dark Arts teacher – most of the city offices are run by people with ties to competing groups. What’s this all about, Oliver?”

He shook his head. “Could you do one more search? For a man named ‘Nicholas Salt?’”

He started doing push-ups as she turned back to the keyboard. It was only a few moments before she had an answer. “Born Nicholai Saltanov, Moscow, 1976. Family moved to the US in 1989 and changed their name to Salt. Competed in chess in high school and biathlon in high school – now that’s a bit stereotypical. And that’s even before you get to his time working for a vodka importer. Moved to Star City last year.”

Oliver got to his feet. “When last year?”

“Early November.” She paused. “About when you started running for mayor. Oliver, I know this is city business and doesn’t concern me, but what’s going on?” 

“He was my last-minute meeting this morning. He... had a list of names for me. Names of people who had applied for openings in the city government. He implied that I should appoint them.”

“Do you have the names?” Felicity held out her hand, sure that he did. He handed it to her, and she began typing.

She hadn’t even finished investigating the first name when alerts began to go off, first blinking at the bottom of Felicity’s screen, then as text messages buzzing on Oliver’s phone. Oliver leaned over her shoulder to read the screen.

The head of the Planning Commission – Fonda? No, Fontana - had just been found dead outside an Italian restaurant. “That’s one fewer member of Bertinelli’s old crew,” Felicity remarked, sorting through images from the scene from police footage and cell phone cameras.

“Stop. Go back to that one.” Beside the bloody body, part of the sidewalk appeared to have some kind of graffiti drawn on it.

Felicity zoomed in on it. “I can run an image-matching search and see what that symbol means, or where it’s appeared before.”

“That’s not necessary,” Oliver said. “I know that symbol.”

Felicity glanced at him. “Care to share with the class? Or with me, I guess, since it’s just us right now.” She shook her head. “Or at least tell me where you’ve seen it before, if you don’t want me to search.”

Oliver sighed. “The last place I saw that mark was on a street corner in a small town near Lake Baikal.”

“And... Who made it? What does it mean?”

“I put it there.” Oliver swallowed, trying to figure out how to force out the words. “It marked the last people that I killed before the Bratva made me a captain.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little private truth, some public lies, some cooking, some bureaucracy. And worries about organized crime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets uncomfortably close to the "fake relationship" trope. Fortunately, I couldn't make it work (possibly because the trope is sexist and problematic, but maybe because I am a mediocre writer).

\-----

Oliver kept his head down, not wanting to see the look on Felicity’s face. The images flicked through his mind like an old slideshow, distant, as if they were someone else’s memories. _Bodies, face-down, executed. An entire family. The children_...

“...And...?” Felicity’s voice recalled him to the present, but he still didn’t look at her. She sighed. “Oliver. We don’t ask about the past, as long as it stays where it belongs. In the past. We know it hurts you. We know you feel guilty about it. We all love the man that you became, so we don’t ask.” He could tell from the way the sound moved that she was walking towards him. “We. Just me, I guess, now. And that all sounds weird coming from me, I know.”

Oliver looked up at that.

Felicity took a breath. “But that’s beside the point. Oliver, when your past comes to Star City, you need to tell us what we’re dealing with. Or tell me, I mean. Frack, this is hard without John down here. This is normally his job.” She shook her head to clear it. “Oliver, I work with information. I can help you figure out solutions. But not when I don’t know what’s going on.”

Oliver shrugged, not sure where to start.

Felicity sighed. “You don’t have to tell the entire story. Just... it’s obvious that you didn’t kill him – I mean, you can’t go anywhere without the Internet stalkers posting photos. And even if someone were trying to frame you, it wouldn’t make any sense to do it with an obscure Russian symbol. So who’s the message for? And what’s it saying? Just knowing that would give me a place to start.”

Oliver took a breath. “Symbols like that are used in internal Bratva turf wars. Every captain has one. They’re used to claim territory... and loyalty. Anyone working for a particular captain can use the symbol to show who they’re working for.” It was easier when he kept it theoretical, so Oliver continued. “Bratva loyalties can be... a bit chaotic. And hard to track. A potential captain shows that his loyalty is to the head of the Bratva, not to anyone else, by killing under his own symbol. And when he makes captain, other people use the symbol to show that they are killing for him.”

Felicity moved closer and touched his arm. “So someone is telling you, what, that they’re killing for you? Or that Star City is your Bratva territory?”

Oliver nodded slowly. “Maybe. But I need to know more to be sure.” He headed for the mannequins.

“Oliver,” Felicity called. “I don’t think that’s the suit that you need. They’ll be expecting a statement from the mayor.”

While he changed, Felicity went back to her computers. He put on his tie as he walked over to see what she was working on.

“I’ve pulled up information about the victim. Mr. Fontana. Information that you can use for condolences, I mean. I left out the part about the ties to the old Bertinelli crew.” She typed a bit more. “And it should be on your phone now. You know, this would have been worse if Helena hadn’t killed her father and his lieutenants. We’d have another mob war on our hands.” She shook her head. “I never thought I would be thankful to Helena for that particular thoroughness.”

Oliver laughed for the first time since he had heard about the killing. “I’m going to drive back to City Hall. I’ve got...” he checked. “Twenty-five text messages so far.”

“Wait.” Felicity dug through a drawer under her desk. “Take a GPS tracker. If all goes well, I can follow you over social media, but this way I can still find you if something bad happens.”

Oliver frowned. “Felicity, if I disappear... don’t come after me.” He looked hard at her. “I know these people. Promise.”

She tried to stare him down, but this one time he didn’t relent. Finally she nodded. “I’ll call Lyla and tell her what’s going on. How do you feel about ARGUS as backup?”

“I trust Lyla,” he said, and left it at that.

Felicity stood as he headed for the elevator. “Wait. I’ll come to the car with you.” He gave her a confused shake of his head. “There are always people taking photos of you around here. I’ll give you an alibi.”

They rode the elevator and headed out the doors in silence. Oliver tried to plan something to say to the press that didn’t include any reference to organized crime.

A few feet before his car, Felicity stopped him. “The light is good here.” And then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Good luck. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

And then she was gone.

Oliver’s face was still tingling when he reached City Hall.

\-----

The reporters’ questions still echoed in Oliver’s ears as he stepped away from the microphone to let the police chief talk more about the investigation. He switched the ringer on his phone back on, and it immediately began buzzing with text messages from Felicity.

FS: _Are you all right? You looked upset._  
FS: _I mean, it’s upsetting, you should be upset._  
FS: _It was appropriately mayoral upsetness._  
FS: _The #MayorMcHottie hashtag likes you when you’re all righteously GGRRRRing._

Oliver tapped a message back.

OQ: _There’s another hashtag???_

Felicity replied immediately.

FS: _Oh good, you’re there._  
FS: _I was worried._  
FS: _Though I also thought you could be driving?_  
FS: _You’re not driving and texting, are you, Oliver?_  
FS: _I mean, I know you’re good at multitasking._

Oliver half-laughed and typed a response.

OQ: _Not driving yet. Just wrapped up. Almost to the car now._

Felicity responded:  
FS: _I’m still here._  
FS: _At the office. Still working._  
FS: _Are you coming here?_

Oliver texted:

OQ: _At the car. There soon._  
\-----

Oliver walked out of the elevator and into Felicity’s arms. She held him tightly for a moment, then released him and led the way to her computers.

“Ugh. Those reporters. ‘How does this affect your plan for hope and unity?’ and ‘Do you have any idea who could have done this?’ and ‘When are you going to finish appointing people to the animal control commission?’ I’m running facial recognition on all of them, and then I’ll check to see if any of them have ties to organized crime.”

Oliver sighed. “That was pretty typical of the press, actually.”

“Yes, but it’s a good thing that you already looked upset and angry, because I thought you were about to put an arrow in them.” Felicity typed a couple more commands, then turned back to him. “I talked to Lyla. She’s ready to provide help when you need it, and she can see whether ARGUS has any international leads. But she says to call her, because she thinks you might have some pieces to the puzzle that aren’t in any of the files that Waller left behind. Oh, and Lance and my mom called. Apparently the news in Vegas had a retrospective on all of Star City’s doomed mayors, and Mom’s worried about you. She says she’ll send you some old Tae Bo videotapes if you want to learn self-defense. I told her that you didn’t own a VHS player.”

Oliver huffed a laugh.

“And in more serious news, I’ve started checking into that list of prospective employees. Every one of them would pass a federal background check, but they all moved to town in the past 9 months. I’m digging a bit deeper, to figure out if – how – they’re connected to the Bratva.”

Oliver nodded. “What about the police? What have they found so far?”

“Based on traffic cameras, they’re still swarming the scene. Oh, and I looked at the older footage, too. I didn’t see your friend Saltanov on any of them.”

Oliver glowered. “He’s not my friend.”

Felicity continued. “Nobody from his list. Or any known Bratva associates, either. Though the lists that I’ve found are pretty incomplete.”

Oliver nodded. “I’ll give you some names to search.” He headed for the mannequins.

Felicity frowned. “The police are still everywhere. You’re hooding up?”

Oliver nodded. “They tend to look the other way lately – ever since the fight with Darhk. If I’m not too obvious, I can look around while they’re still working.” He pulled the bow out. “Besides, I know what to look for, in places that they wouldn’t look.”

He was out for several hours, in the shadows, on the roofs. But there were no other signs. Just that one message, with no clue about what it actually meant.

\-----

Oliver had only been in the office for half an hour, sipping coffee and trying to feel more like a sad and angry mayor than a frustrated and angry Arrow, when Anastasia came into his office. “You have a meeting, Mr. Queen.”

Oliver frowned. “There wasn’t anything on my calendar.” He turned to his computer to see a pop-up warning appear. “Or there wasn’t a half-hour ago.”

“Last-minute addition to the schedule,” Anastasia said, as she let Nicholai Saltanov into Oliver’s office.

Oliver stood and put on his hardest smile. “Mr. Salt.” This time, Oliver was the one who held the handshake a bit too long and a bit too hard. When Anastasia had closed the door, Oliver gestured to a chair. “Have a seat.” He didn’t say ‘please.’

“I hope you have considered my recommendations.” Saltanov paused and looked carefully at Oliver. “I think you would find them... advantageous.”

Oliver forced a smile. “We’re giving each applicant full consideration. But things are a bit busy here.”

“Ah. Yes. I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Fontana.” He smiled like a hungry shark. “I have a suggestion for a replacement on the Planning Commission. The application should be in soon.”

Oliver nodded, picking up a pen. When Saltanov gave him the name, Oliver pressed down hard enough to bend the nib.

“I think you will find him far more valuable than Mr. Fontana. Fontana’s approach was... tactless. Skimming application fees off the top, delaying valuable development projects.” Saltanov clicked his tongue in displeasure. “Your woman’s project, for instance.”

Oliver’s jaw clenched. “She’s not my woman.”

“Yes. I had heard the wedding was cancelled. But you still care about what happens to her.” It wasn’t a question.

Oliver scowled.

Saltanov nodded. “You will be making your decisions soon, I expect.”

\-----

The meeting about hiring a new police commissioner dragged on forever. Oliver doodled in his book, remembering how he and Tommy used to play a sketching game in 5th grade math, which somehow always became obscene. Every now and then his pen started to draw Cyrillic letters, which turned into symbols, which he tried to turn into pictures of puppies before anyone could see them.

When the meeting was finally done, he texted Felicity.

OQ: _Lunch?_  
OQ: _I’ll get take-out sushi._

FS: _Ooh. Special occasion!_

OQ: _I’ll be there at 12:15._

FS: _Hope nothing FISHY has come up._

Oliver smirked and put away his phone.

Felicity didn’t look nearly as perky as she had seemed from her texts. In fact, she looked exhausted.

“Are you ok?” Oliver asked, handing her a California roll.

She grabbed it, took a bite, and closed her eyes for a moment. “Mmm. So good. Thank you.”

He tilted his head at her, waiting for an answer.

She waved her chopsticks at him and smiled a bit too brightly. “I’m fine. Just... worked a bit on the proposal last night. That’s all.”

He looked at her a little more closely. The shadows under her eyes weren’t entirely hidden by her makeup, and her shoulders looked tense. He ached to rub them, but, as she had pointed out after one of many long days of picking up the bunker at the end of May, _we need boundaries, Oliver_. He wasn’t sure where they were, right now, but he was trying to honor them.

She frowned at him. “What?”

He gestured at his mouth. “You’ve got avocado...”

“Oh, thanks.” Her face scrunched as she worked it off with her tongue. “How was your morning?”

Oliver hesitated. All morning, he had wanted to talk through everything – the conversation with Saltanov, his gut feeling about what was going on, his fears. But now he didn’t know where to start, or what he had the right to say. ( _Or the courage to say_ , his inner voice reminded him.)

 _Start with the facts, maybe_. “Saltanov came to see me this morning again.”

Felicity sat a bit straighter in her chair. “And...?”

Oliver sighed. “I know why your proposal wasn’t approved the first time. Fontana was skimming the application fees, sending proposals back, and then considering them the second time around.” He shook his head. “That’s why he wouldn’t let me sit in on the meeting last week. That ethics rule doesn’t even exist. They probably didn’t even discuss your proposal.”

Felicity fixed him with a Look. “It wasn’t your responsibility anyways.”

Oliver shook his head. “I know that. But appointing someone to fill Fontana’s position is. And Saltanov has another name for me.”

“But you’re not going to accept it, are you? I mean, Saltanov is obviously Bratva and trying to get his people into the city government/organized crime game. And even if it’s traditional to appoint your own personal mob army to back you up, that’s not very consistent with saving the city.”

Oliver nodded.

“So... why the sushi? I mean, it’s delicious, but you could have told me about this tonight.”

“It’s just...” The words didn’t want to come out. “Could you stay at Lyla’s? Or have Lyla and Sara move into the loft, if there’s not enough space at Lyla’s?”

Felicity shook her head in confusion. “What? Oliver, what’s going on?” She stood up and faced him. “That was quite a leap, from ‘should I appoint someone from the Russian mob to the Planning Commission’ to ‘Felicity needs to stay with our bad-ass friend from ARGUS.’ And that’s coming from someone who makes giant leaps every other moment. Mental leaps. Not like parcourt.” She took a breath. “Oliver, there’s something you’re not telling me. And I know that’s a true statement pretty much every moment of every day, but in this case, there’s something important that you’re not telling me.” She looked into his eyes, as if she could read everything there.

Oliver looked away. Towards the training mats, though he didn’t see them. “He mentioned you. As someone who would benefit if I appointed the correct person.”

Felicity tilted her head. “That sounds more like a bribe than a threat.”

Oliver shook his head. “He referred to you as ‘my woman.’” He glanced at her before she could protest. “I told him that you weren’t mine.”

“So he’s misogynistic. Because even if we were together, I’m not anybody’s ‘ _woman_.’”

Oliver nodded fervently. “That, I know.”

“But I still don’t understand the threat.”

Oliver took a breath, as if more air would help the words come out. “The Bratva control people by threatening everyone they care about. I’m a rogue captain – I haven’t even contacted them in two years. Now they’re letting me know that I belong to them. And that you’re the leverage they’ll use to make me do what they want.”

Felicity’s voice was quiet. “Did I do it? With the photos? You know, on Twitter?”

Oliver shook his head. “Maybe they saw them. I don’t know. But they wouldn’t need photos to know that you’re important to me.” He stopped himself before he said more. He didn’t get to say those things now.

Felicity looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “I’ll talk to Lyla.” She stepped back and grabbed another piece of sushi. “Because she’s awesome and I like to spend time with her.”

Oliver nodded. It was the most that he could expect.

\-----

Around mid-afternoon, Oliver got a text from Lyla.

LM: _My parents are driving up to get Sara_.  
LM: _You’re cooking tonight. My place._  
LM: _Be there at 5:30. I can get groceries._  
LM: _Text me a list._

Oliver let out the breath that he felt like he had been holding for the past two hours, and started texting a list of ingredients to her.

\-----

There was a pause, then a click of a deadbolt when Oliver knocked on Lyla’s door. The apartment felt empty without the sound of Sara playing.

Lyla pointed towards the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter. “I can help slice if you tell me what to do.” The knife had already been in her hand.

Oliver nodded. “If you do the garlic, I’ll do the onions.” He glanced around. “Felicity’s not here?”

Lyla shook her head. “I wanted to talk to you alone.” She squashed a garlic clove with the flat of her knife, stripped off the peel, and started mincing it. “I’m happy to help with protection for her – and I’m happy to get Sara out of the city if things are about to get dangerous – but I need intel if I’m going to do this well.” She broke off another clove. “I’ve done plenty of work while half in the dark – you know how Amanda Waller was – but given a choice, I’d rather know what I’m up against.”

Oliver cut his onion in half, then started slicing it, thinking about where to start.

“How about I ask questions, for now. What kind of attacks are we talking about? An individual, or a team? In the open? In the parking garage? Disappearances in the middle of the night?” Lyla pushed the garlic aside and reached for a pepper. “Sliced, or diced?”

Oliver started with the easy question. “Short slices, I think.” He pushed the onion aside and started on a zucchini. “The approach varies. Individual rather than team. How open depends on what kind of message they’re sending.”

Lyla set the knife down and looked at him. “And what kind of message will they be sending to you, Oliver?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure. This isn’t Russia. Open attacks would get the attention of the Triad and any other groups trying to gain a foothold. But it might be a message to others in the Bratva, too, not just to me.”

Lyla nodded and pushed the pepper into a pile, then opened a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of olive oil. “I think we should mislead them, then. Bring Felicity here, but make the world think she’s still at the loft.” She set the olive oil beside the stove. “Besides, those windows in the loft are awfully easy to break through. How many times have you broken through them yourself?”

“Too many,” Oliver admitted. “But I’ve broken into this apartment, too.”

“True. But I was fairly certain that you were faking it. I didn’t fight back as hard as I otherwise would have.” Lyla opened a different cupboard and found a box of pasta. “I was ultimately right, you know. Though your cover was deeper than I expected.”

“Here will be fine. Thank you. And... sorry about the kidnapping?” Oliver felt lucky that Lyla, out of everyone, was still in town. She understood the things that sometimes needed to be done.

Lyla looked at him, half amused. “Getting Felicity here without the whole world knowing will be tricky, though. And someone would need to stay at the loft – make it look occupied still.”

Oliver raised his eyebrows.

Lyla nodded. “You need to make the world think that you’ve moved back in with her.”

Oliver frowned, then nodded. “That would give us a reason for moving boxes and suitcases in and out.”

“And it would be an opportunity for Felicity to do some of her photo-manipulation magic,” Lyla added. “If there’s an attack while you’re there, you’ll learn more about who’s involved, and why.” She leveled a look at Oliver. “Though you would need to tell us.” She shook her head at him. “You know, having Felicity on your team is like having an entire Intelligence group working with you. She may be the best in the entire world at surveillance and facial recognition. But she can’t help if you keep her in the dark about what’s going on.” She pulled a couple pots out of a cupboard beside the stove and motioned for Oliver to take over. “And if you want to get back together with her, you’ll have more luck if you would just talk to her, rather than mooning over her when you think nobody is watching.”

Oliver was saved from responding by Felicity’s knock at the door.

\-----

After dinner, they started collecting boxes.

“Fortunately, Johnny never throws them out. He says you never know when you’re going to need to pick up and move,” Lyla said as she pulled a particularly awkward shape out of a closet.

Felicity tilted her head. “I don’t think we’ll need anything that big.”

“We’ll need a reason why the boxes are difficult to move when we’re on our way here, with your stuff in them,” Lyla said. “Even Oliver’s muscles – and your photo skills – won’t convince anyone that full boxes are empty. How much are you bringing?”

“Oh, just the basics.” Felicity shrugged.

Oliver grabbed some more boxes. There would be a lot of semi-mysterious computer hardware in Felicity’s ‘basics.’ And probably shoes, too.

They filled the back of the van with boxes, then stopped at Oliver’s apartment. Felicity and Lyla watched as he dug through his old, still-packed boxes to find the rest of his ties.

“Oliver, you’ve been mayor for how long without unpacking your clothes?” Lyla was amused.

“I have a lot of ties,” Oliver grumbled.

They moved Oliver’s things to the loft, emptied the boxes, and let Felicity arrange the computer equipment so that it wouldn’t get wrecked while Oliver was carrying the “empty” boxes out. Oliver brought his things to the closet, but hesitated hanging up his suits. Felicity’s clothes somehow hadn’t managed to spill across the space into his side of the closet yet. It felt right, putting the grey jacket back beside her red dress.

They left most of Felicity’s things in the loft – otherwise, the entire ruse would fail. Oliver lugged the boxes back to the van, one at a time, trying to make it look like they were empty.

Felicity took pictures with her phone. “These are going to be hard to edit,” she told Lyla.

Lyla smirked. “But they aren’t bad, all the same.”

Oliver didn’t want to think about what his ex-fiancée and his best friend’s wife were admiring.

Down to the lobby. Out to the van. Back to Lyla’s place. Up the stairs, into the spare room. Felicity’s boxes seemed to take up more space now.

Once everything was moved, they stood around a bit and just looked, as if they weren’t sure what to do next. Finally, Lyla went to another room to call her parents.

“Oh, frack,” said Felicity. “Don’t freak out when you look in the refrigerator. There might be eggs from before you left. Just pretend that it’s a failed science project or something. And I never cleaned the hair out of the shower drain.”

Oliver looked down at her and smiled a little. “It’ll be fine.”

“Oliver, my MOTHER’s hair is still there. It’s been that long since I cleaned it.”

“It’ll just feel like home.”

Felicity stared back at him. “Thank you for... worrying. I mean, it’s not like it’s one of your most desirable traits, but I appreciate the thought. And, you know, the act.”

“Lyla’s right. It’s good tactics.” He looked around the small room that had been Andy’s for a while. “You’ll be all right here?”

“Oh, yeah. Lyla and me? It will be like a middle-school slumber party. With less giggling and more Glocks.”

Lyla chose that moment to poke her head into the room. “Oliver, we’d better be going if we want people to believe that you’re just dropping off boxes. Though if you want to kiss goodbye, I could probably find a sheet to serve as a green screen, and Felicity could edit it to look like it’s in your apartment.”

Oliver and Felicity each took a step back. Oliver hadn’t realized how close they had been.

“Good night, Oliver,” Felicity said softly, and turned to unpack her computers.

\------

Lyla had some advice on the drive back to the loft. “You’re going to have to be careful if you want to convince anyone that Felicity’s there with you. Those big windows – half the world could see you in there moping, if you’re not careful.”

“I’m not moping,” Oliver grumbled as he looked out the van window.

Lyla snorted. “And I’m not the head of a secret government agency. Oliver, listen. You’re a terrible actor for a man with a double life. So go into your room and pull the shades, and hope that your Bratva colleagues pay you a visit before anyone would expect you and Felicity to appear in public, or on the balcony, or even in the kitchen.” She pulled into the parking garage. “Good luck.”

“Be careful,” replied Oliver. “And thank you.”

Lyla nodded and drove away.

\-----

Oliver awoke slowly, as the light started creeping over the bed. He rolled towards Felicity’s scent, arm stretched to snuggle around her, face turning to nuzzle into her hair.

His arm came down on the comforter, and he found himself nuzzling a pillow, still half dreaming, painfully hard. He struggled out of the blankets and made his way towards the shower. Her favorite shampoo and body wash were still on the shelves. Oliver sniffed them, hesitated a moment, and turned on the water.

He only used a little of her shampoo as he stroked himself to some semblance of relief.

\-----

Anastasia smirked at Oliver when he walked into the office, but he didn’t pay attention to her, or to the whispers that he heard every time he walked into the hall. Instead, he focused his attention on the folders of information about every candidate for every open city position, starting with the police commissioner. He read the files. He called references. He sorted through his own memory of the Triad, the Bertinelli gang, the Bratva. He spent about an hour on the phone with Quentin Lance, asking about associations that he didn’t know and getting Lance’s gut feelings about the ethics of each of the candidates. When they hung up, Lance wished him luck. That felt good (though Lance had also said “You’ll need it.”).

By mid-afternoon, Oliver had made offers to a potential Police Commissioner and a member of the Planning Commission, and was deciding between a few strong candidates for five more positions. His focus was so intense that he was startled when the office phone rang.

“Yes?” He may have been a little short.

There was a pause, then Anastasia said, “Mr. Salt is on his way to see you, Mr. Queen.”

“I don’t have time to meet with him today, Anastasia. Please ask him to make an appointment if I’m free later this week.”

“He’s already on his way,” Anastasia said.

“Then stop him.” Oliver hung up the phone. Through the window in his door, he caught a glimpse of Saltanov and Anastasia gesturing at each other. Saltanov shot a glare into the office before turning to leave.

Oliver had barely gone back to looking at the applicants for Sewer Inspector when Felicity texted him.

FS: _Just saw S leaving City Hall._  
FS: _I’m tracking him using facial recognition._  
FS: _You ok?_

OQ: _He tried to meet with me._  
OQ: _I had Anastasia send him away._

FS: _Lyla’s here._  
FS: _Officially checking on our consulting work._  
FS: _She says you should make dinner for us at the loft._

OQ: _I’d be happy to. :)_

FS: _Curtis and Paul are coming too._  
FS: _Lyla says to text her a grocery list._  
FS: _She and I will pick up food on the way there._  
FS: _And then she’ll go home to do some stuff._

Oliver wondered what Felicity had forgotten at the loft, and whether Lyla had a more complicated motive than avoiding cooking.

\-----

Oliver had barely taken off his jacket when Felicity and Lyla arrived. Lyla gave him a hug, whispering “This is a photo op, so look like you’ve missed her,” before passing him off to Felicity.

Oliver reached for her, in full view of the windows. She was stiff for a moment, and then relaxed into his arms. He leaned forward and breathed in the scent of her shampoo. “Lyla’s?” he whispered.

“I forgot mine,” Felicity murmured back. “I’ll go up and get it while you and Lyla unpack the groceries.”

Lyla handed her an empty grocery bag, and Felicity disappeared up the stairs.

Oliver set the eggs and milk on the island. “Any threats today?”

Lyla shook her head. “Nothing. Felicity’s tracking Saltanov and all of his cronies with facial recognition, and they haven’t done anything more suspicious than buy alcohol and cigarettes. She’s trying to sort out any possible links between them and your known Bratva associates, but I don’t know if she’s gotten anywhere with that.”

Felicity came downstairs, full grocery bag hanging from her arm. “Oliver, didn’t you bring your shampoo? I swear there was more in my bottle last time I used it.”

Oliver shrugged and tried not to blush.

Felicity handed the bag to Lyla. “See you in a couple hours.”

Lyla looked at them both. “Remember the windows. You might as well be on stage here.” She wrapped the bag up in the other empty bags and headed out.

Felicity shook head. “Staying with Lyla is like a sleepover, except with you. Meaning tactical advice, not, you know.” She waved her arms in the chaotic way that Oliver had learned meant _sex_ , but only when Felicity was embarrassed. When she was turned on, she moved far more deliberately.

Oliver huffed a laugh. “Were there Glocks?”

“Not until lunchtime today. We went to the range and practiced. My hand is sore.” She shook it for emphasis. “Lyla says I need something smaller than John uses. Which totally makes sense.”

Oliver nodded. “You should practice unarmed, too. The Bratva do a lot of their work up close.”

Felicity looked at him as if she were going to ask something, but she turned and started to put away the eggs and milk instead. “Ugh,” she said as she opened the refrigerator. “I wasn’t kidding about the science experiments. Could you bring the garbage over?”

They cleaned out the moldy food, Felicity giving a mixture of running commentary about her mother’s food choices and apologies for the containers of Chinese take-out left from sometime in March. When they finished, the garbage bag was full, and they were both filthy.

Felicity sniffed her arm. “Ick. I’ve got some clothes upstairs... if you take the garbage out, I’ll get my hair out of the drains before I change.”

Oliver hefted the bag and took the elevator down to the dumpster. Felicity was still upstairs when he returned, so he started chopping vegetables. He’d started browning one side of the steaks by the time she emerged.

She sniffed appreciatively. “That smells so good.”

“Thanks,” Oliver smiled.

“Sorry about leaving so much goop in the bathroom. I can’t believe how disgusting it was.”

Oliver shrugged. “You’ve been busy, and you didn’t have anyone to help.”

Felicity nodded. “This place is too big for one person. I can’t believe Thea planned to rent it by herself. Though I guess she never lived in a freshman dorm.”

Oliver nodded and flipped the steaks.

Felicity sat on one of the tall stools and watched. “I would offer to help, but you know what would happen.”

Oliver chuckled. “Yes.” He pulled out another pan and began sautéing the garlic. “But you can tell me what you figured out about our Russian friends. Lyla tried to fill me in, but she wasn’t too clear on what exactly you were doing.”

“I’m doing a kind of network analysis, to see how people are connected to each other. Start with one person – say, my mother. Then you see who she’s connected with – people she works with at the casino, or people she follows on Facebook. People she texts with, if you can hack the NSA, which YOU can’t, but I totally can.” Felicity moved her hands as if she were tracing the connections. “Then you see who they’re connected with, and you see if they connect back together. So my mom connects to Curtis through me, and that’s the end, but connect her to Quentin and suddenly she’s connected to Laurel and Sara and you and Thea and back to me, and distantly to all of ARGUS and the League of Assassins and the Bratva.” She frowned. “My mother is probably connected to more organized crime than you would believe, given all the people she knows in Vegas. I will NOT be telling Lance any of this.”

Oliver tried to follow her. “So you’re saying...?”

“So I did this for all of those applicants of Saltanov’s. And for all of your known Bratva associates. And you know how many people are connected to the Bratva in this city?”

Oliver shrugged. “Hundreds?”

Felicity shook her head. “No. One.” She pointed at the middle of his chest. “You.”

Oliver frowned and added chard leaves to the sauté pan.

“And that was just from tracing your calls to that Russian garage a few years ago. I didn’t even try following your connection to Anatoly.”

“So you’re saying they’re clean.” Oliver moved the steaks to a plate and poured some wine into the pan.

“I’m saying that, if they’re tied to the Bratva, the Russian mob does a much better job of covering their digital tracks than ARGUS does.”

Oliver added shallots to the wine and swirled them around. He was saved from responding by a buzz from the door.

They moved into their roles as a hosting team as if they had never broken up. Felicity took a bottle of wine and loaf of bread from Curtis and Paul, put the bread on the table, poured drinks. Oliver arranged the meat and vegetables on plates. Felicity set Lyla’s salad on the table while Oliver mixed oil and vinegar for the dressing.

And then, suddenly, all the little jobs were done and it was time to sit and eat and socialize. Oliver self-consciously let his hand rest on the small of Felicity’s back as he pulled a chair out for her. She smiled a bit too brightly as she sat.

Fortunately, Paul didn’t seem to notice, even if Curtis and Lyla did. “Thanks for inviting us. It’s nice to be back here after all this time.” He glanced at Felicity. “How are the core exercises going?”

“I would demonstrate, except that I’ve never been good at balancing on one leg while drinking.” She waved her wine glass at him.

“Just keep working at it. Healing takes time and a lot of work, even with technological shortcuts.” Paul looked fondly at Curtis.

“That’s true of relationships, too,” Curtis added, giving Oliver and Felicity a significant look.

Felicity took a drink of her wine. Oliver wiped his lips with his napkin and tried not to wince.

Paul didn’t notice. “Could I take a photo of the two of you? For Facebook? There’s a pool on when you’d get back together, but everyone’s going to argue until there’s evidence.”

Felicity started coughing.

“Are you ok?” asked Paul, getting to his feet.

“Yes,” Felicity wheezed. “Just...” She waved her hand somewhere between her throat and her heart.

Oliver rubbed her back gently. She glanced back at him with a mixture of longing and worry.

There was a flash. “Perfect. Thank you.” Paul sat back down.

The silence almost grew awkward, until Curtis spoke. “So Felicity, you should tell everyone about the algorithm you just sold to Google.”

“Google?” Oliver looked at her, impressed.

“Google Maps, actually. You know how people are always getting lost on abandoned roads that show up as shortcuts?” Felicity asked.

Everyone nodded.

“Well,” Felicity continued, “those abandoned roads look pretty, well, abandoned on satellite images. Even on the same images used for Google Earth – they don’t even need access to anything classified.” Felicity deliberately did not look at Lyla. “It isn’t that hard to tell that a road is maintained – it’s a lot easier than, say, facial recognition when someone shaves or gets a haircut or wears sunglasses. So I just modified the algorithm to tell real roads from the Oregon Trail. I didn’t even have to tell it to avoid oxen or dysentery or anything.”

“That’s great,” Oliver smiled.

“She’s already reduced the number of deaths in Death Valley,” Curtis added.

“You can’t know how many people would have tried to drive through the mountains going back to LA,” Felicity protested. But she still looked pleased.

“And there’s the app that you wrote to protect people from doxxing attacks, too.” Curtis said. “Tell them about that one.”

“I wrote that one for myself, first. Now that it works, I’m giving that one away.” Felicity scowled. “Being a woman on the Internet shouldn’t feel as dangerous as being the Mayor of Star City.”

Lyla nodded. “I’ll drink to that.”

“So how is life as mayor?” Paul asked.

Everyone else suddenly found their steaks very interesting.

Felicity spoke up. “Oliver’s going to be reading to preschoolers at the library next week, right?”

Oliver nodded.

Fortunately, the discussion about the best children’s books lasted through the rest of dinner.

After Curtis and Paul had left, with some discussion of ‘dessert’ and significant looks, Oliver felt like he could let out his breath. “I wish we hadn’t had to lie to Paul.”

Felicity looked sharply at him. “Because lying is so foreign to you.”

Oliver ignored the barb. “Curtis knows what’s going on, I take it?”

“Some of it. Enough to be prepared in case Russian mobsters break into the office; not enough to know why the Russians, out of all the organized crime in the world, would be concerned with you.” Felicity carried the plates to the sink.

Oliver didn’t have a chance to respond, because his phone started blaring a dance tune. He tapped to answer it. “Thea?”

“Ollie...” She sounded like a broken-hearted little girl who wanted her big brother to make everything better. Thea hadn’t sounded like that since before the boat.

“Thea, what’s wrong?”

“Ollie, someone killed Raisa...”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver does a clam impression. Thea does not.

\-----

“Who’s Raisa?” Lyla asked, after Oliver hung up.

“Our old housekeeper. She practically raised Thea and I. Especially Thea.” Oliver was too busy staring blankly at his phone to see Felicity moving in for a hug. “Thea’s heading home tomorrow.”

“How did Thea find out?” Lyla sounded suspicious. 

“Raisa has ...had... a niece about Thea’s age. They used to play when they were little. I didn’t realize they still were in touch, but I guess they are.” Oliver leaned into Felicity’s hug. “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair.

“Your face is wet,” Felicity replied. “You didn’t need to lose another parent-type.”

He nodded.

They were silent for a moment. Then Oliver pulled away.

Lyla said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Oliver.” She paused while he nodded his thanks. “But I need to ask – could there be any connection between this and Fontana’s murder? It’s too much of a coincidence, when we’ve been preparing for an attack on people close to you.”

Oliver shrugged. “It would take some digging into my family’s history to find her connection to me, but I guess it’s possible.” He frowned. “And she was Russian. But she wasn’t connected to the Bratva as far as I know.” He tilted his head at Felicity.

She was already getting her things. “I can add her to the network I’m building when we get to the bunker.” She looked at the dishes. “I hate to leave you with the mess. I mean, we just took care of the refrigerator, and the rule was always that I clean up if you cook...”

“It’s fine,” Oliver assured her. “Really.”

\-----

Felicity was already deep into a search by the time Oliver got changed. “She was home, alone.” She rattled off an address and stuck in the earpiece. “Only a couple detectives responding to this one. I’ll keep an eye on them.”

Oliver nodded as he grabbed his bow.

The scene would have been gruesome even if the victim hadn’t been practically family. Raisa’s body was gone by the time Oliver arrived, but the blood (and other) spatters were consistent with a bullet to the head, with the victim kneeling, executed. She had struggled first - there were pots and pans and bits of vegetables scattered across the floor, as if Raisa had been cooking at the time. Oliver wondered briefly what she had been making, and whether she cooked the same things for herself that she had cooked for the Queens. Neither the door nor the windows had been forced open, but an umbrella stand was knocked over – it looked as though the assailant had entered through the door, maybe after knocking. Raisa was so polite; she would not have turned even a stranger away.

Oliver was about to leave when he spotted the symbol painted in blood on one of the cupboards, on a side hidden from easy view. A bit of paper was stuck near one of the hinges. He opened the cupboard door to get it loose, and looked at it.

It was a photo of a woman – a different woman, also middle-aged. On the ground, surrounded by blood spatters that suggested a bullet to the head. She was tipped over, as if she had been kneeling, her hands at an awkward angle, tied behind her back. _Tied with baling twine. It would have been rough against her wrists, and difficult to tie._

Oliver knew the face, although it wasn’t visible from the angle of the photo.

He tucked the photo into a pocket in his leathers, and headed back to the bunker.

\-----

Oliver was silent as he drove Felicity back to Lyla’s. It was late, and the odds of being photographed were low. Felicity had asked whether there had been a symbol, like at the other killing. He had nodded without saying much, kept the photo hidden, changed quietly. He sat outside the apartment until Felicity texted that she was inside, safe, and she knew he was still out there, but he could go now.

He spent a long time washing and cleaning up before going to bed. He didn’t sleep much.

The next two days passed in a haze. Oliver continued working through the folders of possible appointees by day, and beating the shit out of random drug dealers and small-time criminals by night. He didn’t learn anything new about Raisa’s killer – or Fontana’s killer. Felicity kept working on the network analysis, looking for connections within obscure online communities of Russian expatriates, but she could only find one connection between the victims, the Bratva, and Saltanov: Oliver.

\-----

The funeral was the third day after Raisa’s murder. Thea was already there when Oliver arrived – she had late the night before and stayed in a hotel. _Don’t worry about me, Ollie,_ said her late-night text.

“I’m glad you came,” she whispered as she pulled him in for a hug. “You’re getting better about that.”

Oliver didn’t have to answer, because Felicity appeared behind Thea, arms open wide.

Oliver leaned down to receive his own hug. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. Felicity just hugged him more tightly, then slipped her hand into his as they entered the church.

It was a good-sized crowd. Oliver hadn’t known Raisa’s family, not the way Thea did, but it seemed as though she was either related to or friends with everyone. As they held their candles, Oliver watched the crowd and listened for quiet conversations underneath the singing. He could feel Felicity watching, as well – she had probably memorized the photos from her entire network analysis, and was checking to see who was there.

After walking past the casket one last time, they left the church and walked, silently, towards the cars. Thea took a ragged breath, and Felicity hugged her one more time.

“Thanks,” she said. “I think that was the hardest one since Ollie’s. Maybe worse, with the open casket.”

Felicity tightened the hug. “You shouldn’t have to bury so many family members.”

“At least one came back,” she said with a watery smile, and pulled Oliver into the hug. “But there’s happier news, too, isn’t there? I’m so glad that you two fools are back together, finally.”

Oliver felt Felicity stiffen beneath his arm. “Ummm,” she said.

“We’re not...” Oliver said...

“Oh, come on,” said Thea. “I check #OlicityWatch. I know you moved back to the loft, Ollie.”

Felicity pulled away awkwardly. “I need to get back.” She waved her hands vaguely, as if Oliver and Thea could see whatever was in her head, and headed for her car.

“That was weird,” Thea said. “You owe me a long explanation. And a ride to my hotel. And a place to stay. Unless you’re busy having very loud not-together sex at the loft, in which case I’ll book another night.”

Oliver shook his head. “Your room in the loft is free and quiet.”

“Excellent. Or not, actually, because you really should get back together.” Thea looked for the car. “It’s weird seeing you drive everywhere. No bike, no Digg...”

“I’m the mayor of a frequently destroyed city,” Oliver shrugged.

“Right. So: respectable, but not ostentatious. That is SO not the big brother I used to know.” She climbed into the passenger seat after Oliver opened the door. When he got in to drive, she turned to him. “Okay. Spill. What’s going on with Felicity? There are photos of you all over the Internet. Like, draped all over each other. Outside the bunker, outside the loft... Photos don’t lie, Ollie.”

“Actually, these do,” Oliver said, starting the car. “Felicity edited them. For an alibi for me. To give me a reason to be seen by her office, and to keep people from wondering why I’m never in public when the Green Arrow is active.”

Thea looked skeptical. “But you were hanging off of each other, with big giant heart eyes aimed at each other. Don’t tell me Felicity photoshopped those, too.”

Oliver shrugged. “She’s good... she’s the best. We haven’t done a lot of the things in those photos. Not since she broke up with me.”

Thea shook her head. “Then she’s got some pretty serious fantasies about the two of you. Some of those photos made me embarrassed to look at them.” She gave him a hard look. “Have you talked? Because those photos say _I want to get back together with Oliver._ She might as well have sent you a card.”

Oliver shrugged something that was supposed to mean _no._ “Mostly we work. And eat. And sometimes she gives me a hard time about lying.”

“You two! You need couples’ counseling, or maybe just to be locked in a room together until you either talk, die from stubbornness, or make babies.” She tilted her head. “Aunt Thea. I’ve always wanted to be the crazy aunt who spoils the little darlings and drives the parents crazy." 

Oliver shook his head. “It’s not going to work that way.”

“Why not? Because you can’t put the words together?” Thea rolled her eyes. “I know. You could draw it as cartoons.”

“I can’t draw,” Oliver grumbled.

“Then make stick figures. I don’t care. Just talk to her!” She pointed to the right. “That’s my hotel coming up. Can you wait here while I get my stuff together?”

It took more than fifteen minutes for Thea to come back. Oliver wondered how much stuff she had managed to spread around the room in one short night. Probably a lot. He’d seen what she could do to a bathroom.

Thea didn’t actually have that much luggage when she came back to the car. She handed Oliver an envelope and frowned. “Someone left this for me at the desk.”

He opened the envelope and pulled out a photo of a young woman, tipped over after kneeling, blood and brains splattered on the sidewalk. _In front of a store in a small village near Lake Baikal. The children, and the other woman, would be visible if the photographer were a few steps further back._ “It looks like some kind of threat...?”

“No, Ollie, it’s an invitation to a gala at the art museum.” Thea shook her head. “Of course it’s a threat. But why? And who’s trying to threaten me?”

Oliver stared out the car window. “I think it’s because you’re my family.”

“What, because the _Curse of the Star City Mayor_ is a thing?” She rolled her eyes at his confused frown. “Google it, brother dear. There are YouTube conspiracy theory videos about it.”

Oliver shook his head. “Someone is killing people to send me some kind of message. I thought they were part of the Russian mob, trying to force me to give them positions in the city government. There’s a man who’s been coming to my office nearly every day with a list of names he wants me to appoint. Felicity’s traced most of them to some connection with Russia, but they aren’t tied to the mob, as far as I can tell.”

“Wait, go back. Why exactly do the Russians think they’ve got some kind of in with you?” Oliver squirmed as she eyed him. “Does this have anything to do with the way you mysteriously learned Russian on a deserted island?”

Oliver took a breath. Everyone else who was important already knew this about him. Thea should know too. “I learned to speak Russian when I was in Russia. Which is where I became a captain in the Bratva.”

Thea stared at him. “Seriously? Oliver, nobody expects you to write a tell-all memoir, but sometimes the information that you keep to yourself is just ridiculous.”

“Digg and Felicity know,” he said, as if that were an excuse.

Thea rolled her eyes. “Someday, Felicity and I are going to have a little secret-sharing party. Without you.” She waited for him to reply, but he didn’t have anything else to say. “So did Raisa get a photo, too?” She looked at him. “Seriously, Ollie. Let me see it.”

“It’s at the bunker.” Oliver started the car, ready for the conversation to be over.

“Fine. I’ll go there after I get unpacked. Maybe Felicity can help figure out how the photos are connected.” She glanced at Oliver’s hands, which were twitching against the steering wheel. “You didn’t show it to Felicity? Seriously? Okay, I take it back. You’re not ready to get back together, because you’ve reverted to... I don’t know what, but it’s not the man who proposed to her. What the hell, Ollie?”

Oliver didn’t reply as he navigated back to the loft, winding through the side streets to avoid the sections where rebuilding had begun, or where the streets were still collapsed. Thea didn’t stop glaring at him for the entire drive, but he grit his teeth and pretended not to notice.

When they pulled into the parking garage below the loft, Thea finally spoke again. “Give me your spare key, and I’ll get unpacked.” She held out her hand, certain he would be carrying one for her. 

He handed it over. “Thea. Be careful, okay? We haven’t figured out what’s going on.”

Thea tossed her head. “It’s organized crime, Ollie, not the League of Assassins. Besides, I know where you keep your knives.” 

Oliver shook his head. “Just keep an eye out. And don’t underestimate the Bratva.”

Thea just grabbed her luggage and headed for the elevator.

\-----

Oliver’s phone buzzed in the middle of a meeting. He glanced at the screen, excused himself, and answered it. “Felicity. Is something wrong?”

“Oliver, how fast can you get to the loft? Do you have your bike there, or a car? You drive faster than a taxi.”

“Just a second.” He stuck his head back into the meeting. “Something just came up. Anastasia, could you take notes and fill me in later?” He turned back to the hall and took the stairs – faster than an elevator, going down two at a time, though that was a bit tricky with the phone in his hand. “What’s going on?”

“I hacked the security cameras in our building... my building... the loft. There was someone working on the lock of the loft. Not working like repairing, working like breaking in. Wearing a balaclava, which is crazy in this heat, but which unfortunately did a great job of hiding his face.”

“I’m on my way. Is Thea there?” One floor left to go before the exit. Oliver rounded the landing in one jump and started down the last flight.

“She was.” Felicity paused long enough for Oliver to respond, which was a bad sign, in his experience.

“What do you mean, _was_?”

“I called her first – I mean, if someone was breaking in to my place, I would want to be the first one to know. She answered, but then the phone went dead. I back-pinged it, and she was at the loft when she answered.”

Oliver swore as he pulled the door open on his car. “I’m in the car. Did you call Lyla, or the police, or 911?”

“I’ll call them now. Without Lance around, I’d spend too much time answering questions before they did anything... _my friend won’t answer her phone_ isn’t enough reason to respond.”

“I’ll be on speaker.” Oliver shifted and accelerated around a corner, hoping that Star City’s Finest wouldn’t take this moment to pull him over for speeding. Or running that stoplight at the corner past City Hall.

It took five minutes to get to the loft, even breaking more traffic laws than the Arrow and young Ollie Queen put together. Oliver grabbed his phone and the gun locked in the glove compartment, shot out the lock on the outside of the emergency stairwell, and ran the all the way to the top floor.

The door to the loft had been forced open, and there was broken glass all over the floor. Thea sat on the kitchen floor, swearing, holding a dish towel to her leg.

Oliver ran towards her and grabbed another towel from one of the drawers. “Felicity, call an ambulance,” he said, hoping the speaker was working.

“Roger. Where is she? Where is she hurt?”

“Hi, Felicity,” Thea called weakly.

“Hey, Thea. So conscious... conscious is good. I’m dialing the ambulance on another phone...” There was a sound of one phone being put down. “Injuries?”

“Asshole got my thigh with one of Ollie’s cooking knives. Stupid porcelain blade broke off. What the hell, Ollie? Why can’t you use steel knives like normal people?”

“It’s sharper – better for dicing onions. You know, it doesn’t matter right now. Felicity, she’s bleeding, but not too badly. But a hospital will be better at getting this out.” _Plus_ , he thought, _she’s in street clothes_.

“Glad to hear you can give your brother crap,” Felicity said. “That should be one of the emergency medicine questions, right? What’s your name, what day is it, what’s the stupidest thing your brother has ever done?”

“That could take days to answer,” Thea said, then winced. “Easy, Ollie. I told you the blade was still in there.”

“What happened?” Oliver asked. He could have figured it out from overturned furniture, but he didn’t want to take the towels off of Thea’s wound.

“I was upstairs unpacking. Felicity called, but before I could talk to her, there was this sound at the door – scratching, like someone was trying to pick the lock. He was already inside by the time I got to the door. I think he had a gun, but he didn’t pull it out – he tried to grab me instead. We fought, and ended up in the kitchen. He reached for his gun, and I grabbed the knife – seriously, Ollie, get some real knives – and he got the blade stuck in me while I was trying to disarm him. He left from the balcony.” The doors were open.

Felicity’s voice broke in from the phone’s speaker. “The ambulance is on its way. Police, too.” She didn’t point out that Oliver would need to decide what to say in his statement to them, or that it was a bigger deal to tell them half-truths now, when he wanted to be mayor for real, than it had been when he was playing at being a CEO.

“Thanks,” Oliver replied, and waited.

The ambulance was there in minutes, a flurry of voices and gurney and gloved hands taking over pressure on the wound. Thea cracked jokes and promised that she would be ok. And then the police were there. Oliver repeated Thea’s story, told them how Felicity had figured out something was wrong when Thea’s phone went dead. ( _Ex-fianc_ é _e. Not fianc_ é _e. Yes, she is brilliant, isn’t she._ ) They found zip ties on the floor, near where Thea had fought her assailant. They bagged the evidence, and left Oliver to head to the hospital.

\-----

Thea was resting when he arrived. “How is it?” Oliver asked.

“I’ve had worse,” Thea joked.

Oliver didn’t smile.

“Seriously, Ollie, I’ll be fine. Just remind me to bring my own weapons next time I visit.”

“Felicity talked to Roy,” Oliver told her. “He was worried. I didn’t realize you’d been staying with him.”

Thea attempted an awkward shrug. It didn’t work well in the hospital bed. “I’ve spent enough summers with other people while I tried to figure things out. Seemed time to give him a chance.”

“He’s on his way. Not as himself – I don’t know what name he’s using. He said he’d stay at the bunker.”

“He probably thinks his red hoodie is enough disguise.” Thea rolled her eyes, then closed them. “Sorry. The pain meds are really kicking in.”

“I’ll let you get some sleep.” Oliver dimmed the lights and headed out into the hall.

He didn’t get very far before he got a text from Felicity.

 

FS: _On my way to the office._

FS: _With my stuff._

FS: _Lyla has an emergency._

FS: _Is Thea safe?_

 

Oliver wondered at the wording of the last one.

OQ: _Thea’s resting. Leg’s stitched up fine._

OQ: _Should I go there?_

 

FS: _Please._

 

When he arrived, Felicity was typing in front of a screen with a blown-up, grainy photo on one side. The photo was of a toddler, collapsed on a sidewalk, blood spattered to one side from where she had been executed with a bullet to the head.

“Lyla’s flying down to Coast City right now,” Felicity said. “This photo came in the mail to her parents. Lyla thinks it’s a threat, a threat to Sara, and I think she’s right. It looks like the same style of murder that was done to Raisa. But I can’t figure much else out about the photo. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

Oliver just looked at it, numb, hearing the cries and curses in Russian still ringing in his ears.

Finally he took a breath. “Yes.” He breathed again, in, out. “Yes, I have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least nobody actually died this time?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this fic gets close to the "only one bed available" trope. I consider that trope to involve dubious consent, and I apologize for writing it. Oliver and Felicity don't end up sharing the bed, but I am still disturbed that I wrote the set-up for it.

 

\-----

This time, Oliver forced himself to look at Felicity, to see her reaction. She kept looking at the photo, wheels of her brain clearly spinning. Finally, he pulled out the photo that had been given to Thea and handed it to her.

She looked at it, then looked at the photo of the child. “How many more should there be?”

“Three,” he said, wondering just what was going through that brain of hers. “One photo was left in Raisa’s kitchen. I don’t know about the others.”

Felicity nodded. “You killed them, didn’t you? In Russia?”

Oliver stared at her. “Yes. How...?”

“These two photos are from the same place. Look, you can see the same shop behind them. And there’s obviously at least one more body beside the woman. And... I assume that’s Cyrillic writing, inside the window.” She looked at him. “And you said the symbol from Fontana’s murder was one you left by the bodies of the last people you killed in the Bratva. The pieces all fit.”

“Not the last people I killed. The last people I killed before making captain.” Suddenly, the distinction was very important.

Felicity didn’t seem to be paying attention. “Names.” She looked up at Oliver. “Oliver, if I have their names, I can start tracing their connections in the network algorithm.”

“Lyudmila Kozyreva – that was the photo with Raisa. Lena Mironova.” He lifted the photo that Thea had received. “Katya Zvereva. Nadya Zvereva. Ivan Zverev.” The names were as fresh as when he had been given the list by Anatoly.

“Sorry. Can you help me spell them? I have trouble figuring out which consonants go together.” He leaned over the keyboard and typed the anglicized version of their names.

It took a few moments before their pictures – from when they were alive, not lying dead on sidewalks – appeared on the screen. Oliver stared at them, too numb to even think.

Felicity spun around on her chair. “Oliver. Was that Nadya’s picture, that Lyla’s parents received?”

Oliver nodded.

“Then we need to hurry.” She picked up her phone. “Do you have Samantha’s number?”

Oliver shook his head to clear it, sure he had heard something wrong. “Samantha...?”

“Oliver, Ivan was a kid.”

Oliver nodded. He remembered, too clearly.

“A, what, ten-year-old kid?" 

Oliver shrugged. He couldn’t remember anything but the face, the voice, the blood.

“Oliver!” It wasn’t Felicity’s Loud Voice – just her getting-his-attention voice. “Oliver, whoever is doing this isn’t making a Bratva power play. It’s about you, somehow. Each of the intended victims matches one of the people you killed. Except Fontana, but he doesn’t fit any of the patterns – no picture, nothing. And there are two people left.” She pointed to the screen. “Another young woman, and a boy.”

Oliver’s brain felt like cold oatmeal. He just frowned.

“Oliver. A young boy. Connected to you. Oliver, they’re going to go after William.”

Oliver shook his head. “I sent William away and I don’t know where he is. Nobody knows where he is. And nobody knows he’s connected to me.”

Felicity threw her hands into the air. “Seriously, Oliver? Let’s make a list of people who know. You start, because it still makes me mad, being added so late to that list.” 

Oliver thought. “You. Digg. Thea. Lance. Mari McCabe. Barry Allen.” He stopped. “Malcolm.”

“Ding ding ding!” Felicity said. “And nobody can predict what Malcolm will do, or where he’ll turn up, but there’s one thing that’s certain: he’ll do completely nonsensical things if he thinks they will protect Thea.” She looked at him. “And who has already been targeted?”

Suddenly it was all clear. “Thea.” Oliver frowned again. “But I don’t know where Samantha is, or how to contact her. That was the point.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “Seriously, who do you think you’re talking to? I am not your average pissed-off ex-fiancée, Oliver. Give me five minutes and an Internet connection and I can find almost anybody. If they’re anywhere with cameras.” She typed a few commands and let the search start. “Except Malcolm. Which isn’t at the top of my list of reasons why I hate that guy, but it’s totally on the list. Probably somewhere on the second page, because that list is REALLY long.”

Oliver leaned over the back of her chair and watched commands that he didn’t understand appear and disappear on the screen.

“They’re in Boston,” she said, spinning around as several photos appeared on the screen. “And... that’s Samantha’s new cell number.” Felicity picked up her phone. “Umm. Do you want to call her? I mean, I’ll do it, I promise I can explain the danger without going into your island/Russia privacy thing, and you aren’t being very articulate right now. But you should have a choice. I mean, I’ve yelled at you about making decisions without me. I shouldn’t make decisions for you. Not about this.”

Oliver looked at her, feeling already miles behind, and grimaced. “You can do it. I don’t even know where I would start. And I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want to hear from me.”

“Oh, she won’t want to hear from me, either, not about this. Who would? But it’s better to KNOW.” Felicity picked up her phone, then turned back. “The network algorithm won’t have any results - nothing that will make sense easily, I didn’t waste time building a decent user interface – but there are also some more general searches running. There might be some alerts. So, just... don’t touch anything, ok?”

Oliver nodded as Felicity took her phone to another corner of the bunker. He could hear bits of the conversation – a greeting, an explanation that was much further from a babble than he expected, a few ‘yes’s and ‘no’s. It was almost soothing, and gave him the space to try to figure out the mental leaps she had made. It all suddenly made sense, and he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen it himself, that he had been so wrapped up in horrifying memories that he couldn’t see the big picture. And the entire thing wasn’t clear, because he had no idea who would come to Star City seeking revenge on a former Bratva captain and his loved ones.

Oliver was lost enough in the thought that he didn’t realize Felicity was back.

“Samantha was less skeptical than you might expect, though I guess the last kidnapping makes everything else seem less ridiculous.” She paused. “She wants to know if you’ll come to Boston to help protect them. I told her I would ask. I also got us a plane that you can use to fly there.”

Oliver frowned. “You got a ticket?”

“No, I got a plane. Ferris Air owes me a favor – I let them test an early version of some software that’s a civilian version of something ARGUS wanted. Anyway, Ferris Air owed me a favor, so I asked to borrow a private jet.” She stopped to gage his reaction. “It’s at the airfield. If you want to go, it wouldn’t take long to register the flight plan and head east.”

Oliver nodded. “Yes. I’ll go.”

“Great,” Felicity replied. “When you go by the loft to get your things, could you get a few changes of clothes for me, too? I’ll take care of the flight plan and keep an eye on the network algorithm, and then I’ll transfer everything to my laptop.”

Wait. Did she mean... “You’re coming?”

Felicity shrugged. “I went to college in Boston. I know my way around it – and navigating Boston is hard. I mean, I know you technically spent a semester in Boston, too, but how long were you really there?”

“About five weeks,” Oliver admitted.

“Does that count the time you spent in jail in Montreal after that hockey game, or not?” She raised her eyebrows at him, and he just shrugged helplessly. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I could be very useful. And we still don’t know who’s responsible for the murders – we just know a pattern, but you already thought I could be a target, so I might be safer with you. Lyla’s on her way to Coast City to protect Sara. Roy should be here to keep an eye on Thea until she recovers, which probably won’t take that long. She’s got your genetics when it comes to healing from crazy stab wounds, I swear. So yes, I’m coming.” She paused. “Unless you don’t want me to come? You went to extremes to keep me away from William before...”

“Felicity, that’s not... I never meant...” Oliver stopped and took a breath. “I would be happy to have you along.”

She breathed a sigh that might have been relief. “Good. Lyla said I’m an asset that you’re silly not to use.”

Oliver winced. “You’re not an _asset._ ” Her face fell, and he tried to backtrack. “I don’t like that word. Amanda Waller used to use it, just before she gave orders.” Felicity looked unconvinced. “I mean, you’re not just an asset. Amanda Waller’s assets would get disposed of when they were no longer useful. You’re...” He paused, feeling like he was skirting the boundaries between them a bit too closely. “You’re not something to be disposed of.”

Felicity hesitated, then nodded. “You pack. I’ll organize the tech and be ready when you get back.”

He was heading towards the elevator when she called out to him, “Oh, and don’t forget to let your office know that you’re leaving. You are the mayor now, you know.”

He shot a quick smile back at her. He had nearly forgotten.

\-----

The first time Oliver had packed for Felicity, it had been a joke. They had been trying to leave for a short overnight trip, and he must have seemed impatient, because she finally said _if it’s that easy, Oliver, YOU do it._ And so he did. And then they had to run into a store for various things, three different times, including for a wrap to keep her shoulders from burning on the hike.

The second time Oliver packed for Felicity, she challenged him with a dare. His shoe choices were acceptable at best, but she seemed to enjoy the clothes that he picked out. Or at least, she enjoyed having them removed.

After that, Oliver took on the challenge with the same single-minded intensity with which he had learned archery, and Russian, and cooking. By the time they returned to Star City, it had become a habit that they didn’t even think about. Oliver would pack, and Felicity would stay working on her computers, presumably doing CEO things, though in retrospect, Oliver wondered how much of that time was spent helping the team.

So it felt both familiar and inappropriately intimate to be standing in front of their formerly shared closet, trying to choose clothes for Felicity to help protect his son. Jeans, comfortable shoes, bras and underwear that he would force himself not to think about. Lipstick. Various things to care for her hair. Spare contacts. Something comfortable to sleep in...

Oliver put Felicity’s things in a suitcase, and turned to his own belongings.

\-----

There were a number of good things about flying in a private plane. You could bring Pelican cases with the bow, arrows, and guns, plus any number of custom computers, with no problems. The trouble with flying your own jet was that... well, you had to fly it yourself. Oliver settled into the cockpit and looked over the controls. It was very different from the broken-down, barely functional Soviet-era plane he’d learned to fly in Russia, but not so different from the Queen Consolidated jet that he had flown for his American pilot’s license. The controls weren’t the problem. The problem was his ex-fiancée, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, gripping the arm rests with white knuckles.

“You could sit in the back, you know,” Oliver suggested as gently as possible. “Take your meds. Sleep.” After last summer’s travels, he knew just how scared Felicity was of flying.

She shook her head. “I’ll be ok.” Her shallow breathing suggested otherwise.

He froze. “Do you have your meds? I forgot to pack them. We can go back and get them. It won’t take that long.”

She took a deeper breath. “I’ll be fine.” Oliver heard her murmur something that sounded like “ _Fear is the mind-killer... Fear is the little death...”_

Oliver shook his head to clear it. “Huh?”

“It’s from a book that I borrowed from Lyla. I’d read it before. I mean, who hasn’t read _Dune_? Except you, probably, I guess. But Lyla had a copy. Of course she did, she’s practically Bene Gesserit. But she suggested some other techniques for dealing with fears. Other than meds. So I’m trying.” Felicity breathed again, a bit more deeply, and stared out at the runway.

Oliver watched, and wished there was something he could do. He remembered letting her clutch his hand on one of their flights together – maybe for Italy? She had buried her face in his shoulder whenever turbulence bounced them. But he was doing the flying. And holding hands would cross so many of her boundaries.

“My first time on a plane was flying to Boston for college,” she said, almost as quiet as a whisper. “I never flew as a kid. I guess my dad figured he’d be arrested, and then he was gone, and Mom never had enough money to fly anywhere. Though she talked about going places. Like Bali. She had these dreams of a vacation in Bali.”

“Is that why you suggested it?” Oliver asked. “I wondered. It was an awfully long flight for someone who’s afraid of flying.”

Felicity nodded. “She wanted to drink out of a coconut.” She flashed half a grin at Oliver, then sobered. “But flying to Boston wasn’t nearly as romantic.”

“You were alone?”

“Yes. In a middle seat, too,” Felicity confirmed. “And even with the huge men on either side of me, it would have been fine if the plane hadn’t been struck by lightning.”

“That actually happens?”

Felicity nodded. “And it’s even worse than you’d imagine. I thought we were all going to die.” She took another breath. “And now you know why I’m afraid of flying.” She looked out the window. “You know, it wasn’t nearly as hard to tell you about it as I thought it would be.”

Oliver had to force himself not to reach for her hand.

Felicity took a breath, then glanced at Oliver. “Could you tell me everything that you’re doing while we fly? I think... I think that might help.”

“Of course,” Oliver said softly.

Oliver talked briefly to the control tower, then started the engine and steered the plane towards the runway. Through taxiing and take-off, he told Felicity about each button or knob or switch – what they did, which flaps moved, how you decided how steeply to climb. At first she nodded silently, but soon she was asking questions. By the time they emerged into the blue sky above the clouds, she had moved on to things that Oliver couldn’t answer – how did the shape of these wings affect the lift, and why were the flaps shaped in a particular way. She pulled out her tablet, connected to the jet’s wi-fi, and found the answers for herself.

Oliver glanced over at her, with one leg tucked into her seat and her hair hanging loose around her tablet, and smiled. The average villain would have no idea how dangerous Felicity’s tablet could be under the right circumstances – that her tablet could empty their bank accounts, take down their missiles, or trap them in a locked building if they weren’t careful. All she needed was the right information, and she could be unbeatable.

And then he saw it, with the kind of blinding flash that made him wonder how he had missed it for so long. Knowledge, for Felicity, meant control. It calmed her, in the same way that his bowstring between his fingers calmed him. He gave his head a little internal shake. Of course she hated mysteries. No wonder she had warned him about the bad things that happened to people who planned surprise parties for her birthday. Mysteries, surprises... secrets... kept knowledge away from her. Took away her control.

It was amazing that she had decided to trust him at all, back before she knew any of his secrets.

Felicity tapped a few more times on her tablet, then looked at him, worried. “I hacked into the information being sent to the cockpit computer. I wanted to see how the wind speed information worked with the things you were doing with the flaps, and then I started looking at the National Weather Service information, and then... just look.” She held up the tablet. “See the line of thunderstorms ahead?”

“I can navigate around them,” Oliver offered.

“Not without flying out of our way. Seriously, it looks like the entire length of the Rocky Mountains is stormy.”

She was right. _Of course she's right,_ the voice in Oliver’s head commented. _It’s Felicity._ The puffy clouds that had been below them were giving way to taller and taller towers, from the north to the south horizon. In fact, the turbulence was likely to start...

The plane jolted.

_Now._

Felicity’s breath hissed as she forced herself to breathe in and out. Oliver watched the determined look on her face, and made a choice.

“My first flight started in a blizzard in Russia,” he said. “The original pilot couldn’t see well enough, so he talked me through it.”

“He couldn’t see because of the blizzard? But he thought you could?” Felicity frowned. “Oliver, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“He couldn’t see because his eyes were injured in the explosion before we took off. We were the only ones who got away.” Oliver shrugged. “There weren’t really any other options.”

Felicity nodded. “How do you take off in a blizzard?”

“Same way as at a regular airport, except that you hope there isn’t ice on the flaps, and you can’t see what’s in front of you.”

Felicity shivered. “Sounds terrifying.”

Oliver nodded. “It was. But it got better once we got into the air.” He paused. “It’s peaceful up high.” The plane bounced again. “Most of the time.”

Felicity bit her lip. “Could you... tell me more?”

Oliver took a breath, and started. Practice flights over the Urals. Little planes held together with the Russian equivalent of duct tape. The QC jet, after he got home – Walter had supported him when his mother argued against it – and the sense of quiet peace in the air above Starling City.

He talked for an hour.

And then Felicity pulled up the software she had developed for Ferris Air, a program that compared satellite images with the view from the plane to check whether the navigational systems were correct, and explained how it worked, and what was different from the system she was designing for ARGUS, and how she was planning to adjust it based on comments she had received from Ferris Air pilots. She helped Oliver figure out how to pull up the cockpit version of the data, and tapped notes on her tablet as he commented about which parts were hard to interpret while flying.

Before he knew it, the sky faded from blue to violet to black, and the nearly-full moon appeared on the horizon.

\-----

It was late, past William’s bedtime as far as he remembered, when they landed in Boston, loaded everything into a rental car, and headed for Samantha’s apartment to set up surveillance equipment. They had to drive around several blocks before they found parking, but Felicity used the complicated route to check the traffic cameras while navigating the maze of one-way streets.

Felicity called Samantha twice – once from the airport, to let her know the plan, and once from outside the apartment, to let her know that it was safe to open the door when they knocked. Oliver stood back as the door opened and Felicity pulled Samantha into an unexpected hug, then began explaining the plan, with a string of technobabble punctuated by wild gestures. Samantha looked a bit dazed, but the tension in her shoulders began to relax as Felicity went on, as if there was something reassuring about Felicity’s incomprehensible, enthusiastic brilliance.

It made Oliver relax, at least. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that there could be anything calming about watching his ex-fiancée tell the mother of his son about the plan to protect them from yet another monster that Oliver had created.

“Oliver!” Felicity gave him a sharp look, as if he should have been paying attention to what she was saying. Samantha looked at him expectantly, as well. “Oliver, I was telling Samantha about the surveillance cameras that we’re going to put around her apartment. We need your expertise to choose the best spots. And, well, your height, to put them in place.” She pulled some tiny devices from her courier bag.

So Oliver walked around the apartment, inside and out, installing cameras. First thinking like a hired killer for the Bratva, and then, for good measure, like a member of the League of Assassins. Samantha looked shocked when he climbed out one window to fasten a camera to the outside of the building, facing toward William’s window. She made some comment about how there wasn’t even a fire escape near there, but Felicity responded with something funny enough to distract Samantha from thinking about it too deeply, and took Samantha’s phone to install an app that would keep other people from tracking it.

And then they were done, and Samantha was thanking Felicity as Oliver hung back, still uncertain of the ground rules for this situation.

Samantha took a breath and looked at both of them. “I’m so glad you’re back together.”

Oliver blinked. “What?”

“I’ve been following #OlicityWatch. And I’m so glad... I mean, I know why you broke up. I’d been feeling bad enough about it – you were so obviously in love – and I was obviously wrong in thinking that Felicity was any kind of risk to William. If she’d been involved in protecting him the first time, maybe nothing would have happened...”

Felicity plastered on a smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I’m spectacularly bad at keeping Malcolm Merlyn from doing anything.” She stopped as soon as she saw Samantha’s shoulders tense again. “Which doesn’t mean we won’t keep William safe this time. We will. Right?”

Oliver winced as Felicity dug her elbow into his side. “Yes. Right. We will.” He paused for a moment. “Thanks for letting us help.”

Samantha nodded, and said goodbye one more time.

Felicity looked thoughtful as they headed back to the car. Oliver didn’t say anything. Instead, he got into the car and followed Felicity’s directions to the hotel.

\-----

Felicity had made a reservation for a suite at a hotel that she knew near the MIT campus. Oliver followed her lead, carrying the luggage, until she opened the room door.

Felicity frowned as she looked into the room. “I thought this was the wrong room number.”

Oliver looked over her head to see what was wrong. There was a window facing the campus, a good-sized desk with a couple of chairs, and a single king-sized bed. And that was it, other than the door to what presumably was the bathroom.

Felicity was already on the phone to the front desk, arguing in something approaching her Loud Voice, while simultaneously pulling her tablet out of her bag. When the call ended, she stalked into the room, slammed down her phone (onto the bed, Oliver noticed – even furious, she would never damage a piece of tech), and tapped rapidly on her tablet.

Oliver waited, not saying a word, until she was done.

“He’s right,” she finally said. “They don’t have any more suites available. Which is ridiculous, because I totally hacked their system before we left and gave us one. He gave it away while we were in the air. ‘Sorry,’ my ass.”

Oliver ventured a comment. “We could get a second room...”

“No, Oliver, we can’t get a second room. There was one available, but he just gave it away. And besides, Curtis says that Paul has a lot riding on his Facebook pool about whether we’ll stay together this time." 

Oliver braved her glare. “We could get another hotel...?”

“No, we can’t. We’re staying in this hotel because it’s got the best bandwidth in the city – it’s actually part of the MIT network. Most hotel networks can’t handle the amount of raw data that we’ll be getting from the surveillance cameras. We needed to be here. And we needed that suite.”

Oliver tried very hard not to look at the bed. “There’s enough room on the floor for me...”

Felicity looked guiltily at him. “Would that be all right? I mean, I know you’re slept on the ground plenty of times, we had this conversation when we camped by Mt. Rainier, but your knee...”

“It’ll be fine.” Oliver still avoided looking at the bed. “Really.”

\-----

They spent most of the next day alternately checking through surveillance footage and taking turns getting coffee, take-out Chinese, and chocolate for Felicity. The network algorithm still hadn’t found any connections between Oliver’s victims from Russia, members of the Bratva in the US, and people who had been in or near Star City in the last few months. And the surveillance cameras didn’t show anything out of the ordinary.

“Though ‘ordinary’ is such a broad category,” Felicity said, pushing away from the desk where she had been combing through a month’s worth of traffic camera footage. “Even with a month’s baseline data, I don’t know if any algorithm could pick up weird behavior.”

“Maybe following traffic laws?” Oliver suggested, watching yet another car speed through the intersection.

Felicity shook her head. “Nobody who was trying to avoid the cops would even consider doing that.” She tilted her head until her neck cracked. Oliver wished he could rub her neck – he knew the exact spot that was hurting. “If we had any idea who we were looking for – other than Malcolm, which doesn’t help one bit – it would be so much easier to write code that would alert us.” 

So they went back to searching through the footage, taking turns watching different cameras, trying to think of some kind of pattern. Lyla called from Coast City – Sara was fine, Lyla had installed her own set of surveillance cameras, and there were no new signs of threats. Felicity sent Lyla some new code for monitoring the camera, and then they went back to work. Roy checked in, too, with no problems, and a long, lively conversation with Felicity. It had been dark for hours by the time they ordered pizza, took turns in the shower, and turned out the lights.

\-----

Sometime after midnight, Oliver heard the familiar sound of a laptop opening, and saw the faint glow from somewhere near the head of the bed. He shifted to his other side, trying to pretend that he wasn’t also awake.

It didn’t work. “You can’t sleep either?” Felicity asked softly.

Oliver grunted something affirmative, trying not to think about the ways that they used to help each other fall back to sleep.

Felicity sighed. “I can’t stop thinking. And then when I do, there are these dreams...”

Oliver breathed deeply. “I know.”

Felicity tapped a bit on her keyboard, then let out a frustrated groan and clicked the laptop shut.

Oliver lay quietly for a moment, then took a breath and asked what he had been wondering for the past day. “Why did you come, Felicity?” He paused as he heard her suck in a breath without answering. “I’m glad to have you. Please don’t misunderstand. It’s just... this is my responsibility. Things I did in Russia.” He paused. “My son.”

Felicity didn’t speak for a moment, though the sheets rustled, as if she were moving the pillows behind her back. “Two thousand, three hundred and forty-three kids died in Havenrock. If I had been just a little bit faster, just a little bit better, they would still be alive.” She took a breath. “I couldn’t let any other kids die. Not when there was something that I could do.”

Oliver nodded, though he knew she couldn’t see.

“Do you ever feel like, no matter what you do, no matter how good you are at it, it will never be enough?” Felicity asked.

Oliver huffed a laugh. “All the time.”

Felicity shifted the pillows again. “I was so afraid that you wouldn’t trust me to help with this.”

 Oliver sat up, trying to see her face in the darkened room. “Why?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe because you didn’t trust me enough to help. Before.” _Before she knew about William,_ Oliver’s inner voice reminded him.

“Felicity, it’s not that. It was never that.”

Felicity sighed. “I know that. When I’m being rational about it. Which is hard, you know?” She paused. “I couldn’t believe you sent him away. I had myself all convinced that everything would be ok, that you just wanted to be a father so badly, that we could talk about it and I would forgive you, and I would try not to be too much of an evil stepmother, and we could still live happily ever after. But you convinced yourself that you had to give him up, just like you convinced yourself that you had to give me up once, and if you chose him over me and then left him, how could I ever be sure that you wouldn’t leave me, too?”

Oliver was glad that she couldn’t see his eyes, which were definitely wet. “Felicity...”

“That wasn’t fair. I know that wasn’t fair. Lyla reminds me of that all the time, that I couldn’t know what you would do, that we aren’t my parents.”

“Lyla knows a thing or two about second chances,” Oliver ventured, wishing this were one.

Felicity laughed. “If I didn’t know that John is the most wonderful, loyal teddy bear of a guy...” She trailed off. “Oliver. What if we can’t protect William? What if Malcolm somehow gets past my cameras? What if the threat isn’t something we can recognize from motion detectors and image analysis? We’ve been out-maneuvered before...”

Oliver looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve been wondering that myself.”

Felicity sighed. “And then I worry that I won’t get enough sleep, and I’ll be trying to recognize threats while half-awake, and I’ll miss things, and then I roll over and try to sleep, but I can’t because I’m so busy worrying.”

Oliver lay still for a moment, working up his courage. “How about if I tell you a story?”

Felicity laughed. “You don’t tell stories, Oliver. You keep them to yourself until a crisis happens and you have to explain, and even then, it’s like subject, verb, basic info, time for action.”

“This isn’t a very nice story. It might give you nightmares.” He paused. “It’s given me nightmares.”

Felicity was silent, waiting.

“Once upon a time...” He glanced at the bed, wishing he could see the grin that he expected would appear on her face. “Once upon a time, a castaway went to Russia...”

The story took hours. But somehow, before the sun rose, they both fell asleep.

\-----

Felicity was awake, tapping at her computer, when Oliver awoke. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said. “Story-telling wore you out?”

He smiled. “Did you sleep all right?”

“Better,” she said. “But I had an idea. You said the Bratva would kill everyone who was close to their mark first, before killing the mark, so that there would be nobody left to take revenge, even in the next generation.”

Oliver nodded. “But we did that.” He shook his head. “I. I did that." 

“Yes,” Felicity said. “But what about the rest of the network? What about the friends and relatives of the other people you killed? Everyone has people who care about them, right? If our murderer killed little Sara, it wouldn’t just hurt you – Lyla, and John, and their families, and their Army buddies, and the half of ARGUS that isn’t working under coercion wouldn’t rest until the murderer was brought to justice.”

“Ok,” Oliver said. “So...?”

“So I need to look at the connections of the victims beyond the Bratva, and look at their connections. We need a wider net.” Felicity frowned. “But that takes time.”

“We could get coffee while it’s running,” Oliver suggested.

It took a while to leave the room – they had to take their separate showers, and Oliver needed to trim his beard, and Felicity did something interesting to her hair that pulled it off of her neck. ( _Boston is miserable in the summer,_ she said. _Hot. And humid. Star City is so much nicer._ Oliver just thought that her hair looked vaguely nice.) But an hour later, they were sitting in a coffee shop, trading memories of Boston. (Felicity had more stories. She had spent more time there, after all. And, unlike Oliver, most of that time had been sober.)

The program was still running when they got back to the room, so Oliver decided to call his office to see how everything was going back in Star City. Felicity teased him about being responsible, and he grinned back at her as he dialed.

Nobody answered his phone.

He tried some of the other offices. Finally he got an answer from Animal Control – Fred? Andy? – who told him that Anastasia wasn’t in, and hadn’t been seen at all yesterday. Oliver thanked him and hung up, frowning.

Felicity noticed. “What’s wrong? We didn’t leave behind a new mob war, did we?”

Oliver shook his head. “Could you add another name to your network algorithm?”

Felicity typed in Anastasia’s name. A few moments later, she stopped whatever she had been doing and stared at the screen. “Oliver, look.” 

He looked over her shoulder.

Anastasia had been an exchange student in Russia in 2003. And had stayed with the family of Katya Zvereva.

They didn’t have time to discuss what that meant, because Felicity’s phone started buzzing. It was a text from an unknown number. Felicity tapped the message, and a photo appeared. A young woman, lying on a sidewalk, blood spattered from a bullet to the head.

Katya Zvereva.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Action. Villain monologues. Pokemon Go. Shower. In no particularly order.

\-----

Oliver and Felicity looked at each other. Felicity looked scared, but determined. Oliver had no idea what she saw on his face. Felicity turned and dug through her messenger bag until she finally pulled out a couple more cameras.

She handed them to Oliver and turned back to her computer. “I’ll program Anastasia’s face into the image analysis software. And I’ll trace the number from the text.”

Oliver nodded. “I’ll put one of these cameras outside the door.”

“And in the lobby, too,” Felicity suggested. “And there’s a fire door. And before you go...” She reached into the bag and found a pair of GPS trackers. “Both of our phones are already programmed to track these.”

Oliver slipped his into the pocket of his jeans. He paused before going out the door. “She’s working with at least one other person,” he said. “Anastasia was in the office when Thea was attacked. And Thea’s attacker was a man.” 

Felicity nodded. “I’ll make a list of all the men who have been associated with Anastasia. We can share pictures with Thea – see if any of them have the right body type at least.” She paused. “This is actually good news, Oliver. We’ve finally got something to go on. I know it doesn’t feel that way right now.”

He just nodded and headed out to install the surveillance cameras.

\-----

He came in a few moments later to find Felicity at her computer, frowning.

“Anything?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Not much. It was a burner phone, of course. It was at Boston Commons when the message was sent, but it hasn’t moved. I bet it was ditched. Meanwhile, I’ve been sorting through all the men that Anastasia knows to see if any have gun licenses, and Thea gave me an idea of the size of her accomplice. It might be your friend Saltanov, after all, but there are a lot of other possibilities.”

Oliver nodded. “How about the surveillance cameras? Or traffic cameras?”

“Nothing,” Felicity said. “Samantha texted and told me that she needed groceries – she promised the store isn’t far - so I’m watching some other traffic cameras to keep an eye on them. So far, so good. Oh, and William likes Chunky Monkey ice cream, in case you wanted to get him something to go on a birthday cake. I guess it makes sense that the grocery store keeps a camera in the Ben & Jerry’s aisle.”

Oliver looked at the images over her shoulder. “I don’t even know when his birthday is.”

Felicity shook her head. “I guess that’s one way to avoid sending strange surprise presents. My dad used to send puzzle books and electronics kits with no return address. I had to sneak them into my room before Mom got home from work, or she’d be mad.” She typed some other things. “They’re checking out now. Looks like William doesn’t have a peanut allergy – that’s a lot of peanut butter. Wow.” She switched back to the screen listing all of Anastasia’s likely male accomplices. “Enough stalking your kid. Do you recognize any of these guys?”

Oliver scrolled through the pictures, thinking through Thea’s description of her fight, and the evidence he’d seen at each of the other murder scenes.

Felicity’s phone buzzed, and she stepped away from the computer to look at the message. “Oliver...” she said. “It’s Samantha. She forwarded these photos to me.”

There were two: Ivan Zverev and Katya Zvereva.

Felicity frowned. “She never sent a photo to more than one person before, did she?”

Her phone rang before Oliver could answer, and she walked across the room, gesturing at her phone. Oliver started opening his Pelican cases, loading guns, and laying out his arrows in groups.

“Oliver...” Felicity said, phone away from her mouth. “I told Samantha that we could meet her at her apartment. What do you think?”

Oliver nodded his agreement, while Felicity helped Samantha figure out how to get the number of the phone that sent the photos. Felicity must have switched the phone to speaker at some point, because Oliver could hear Samantha’s voice over the tapping of Felicity’s keys.

And then suddenly, the quiet voice over the speaker turned frantic. “William? William? WILLIAM??”

Oliver leaned over the phone. “Samantha. This is Oliver. What’s wrong?”

“He’s gone. I was looking the other way – he was on his phone playing a game, he was fine, I knew he was fine – and then I looked back and he’s not there!”

“Where are you?” asked Oliver, reaching for his gear.

“She’s a ways from here,” said Felicity. “Samantha. What’s William’s number? And what game was he playing?" 

“What game? I don’t know, Pokemon something, all the kids are playing it. Can you track him?”

“Give me his number and I’ll try.” Felicity wrote it down, then looked at Oliver and muted the phone. “Pokemon Go uses the phone’s GPS. I should be able to find him, but Oliver, lots of other people could, too.” She paused. “A motorcycle would be faster than the car. I know an MIT professor who used to keep one parked near here – you should take it.”

Oliver raised his eyebrows at her.

“He’s a jerk who makes grad students sleep with him. Take his motorcycle, Oliver. And wreck it for my friend Denise, who still hasn’t been able to finish her PhD.” Felicity turned the phone back on again. “Samantha, it looks like he hasn’t gone too far. Oliver’s heading there – he should be there soon." 

The phone was silent.

Felicity frowned. “Samantha?” She looked at Oliver as the line went dead.

“They got her,” Oliver growled. “Where’s the motorcycle?”

“In a moment, Oliver,” Felicity hesitated. “I’ve got an idea. Well, a plan, if you agree. But you’re going to hate it.”

\-----

Oliver hated the plan, but he didn’t have any other suggestions. So he and Felicity sped towards the park where they had located Samantha and William, armed but not suited up, on the ‘borrowed’ motorcycle. Felicity’s tablet stayed in her messenger bag with its surveillance software still running, while Felicity wrapped her arms around Oliver’s waist. At the park, Felicity pulled the tablet and a few other essentials from her bag, handed the bag to Oliver, and headed one way while Oliver started tracking the tablet on his own phone and walked the opposite direction. He glanced at Felicity one more time, worried, but she just gave him a sharp look that may have meant _I’ll be fine_ or _I knew you’d hate it_ or _Go._

Felicity had barely disappeared from sight when her tablet stopped transmitting. Oliver sucked in a breath, activated the tracking app that followed her GPS, and turned on the next street.

The dot representing Felicity stopped for a moment inside an abandoned warehouse. Oliver almost laughed – he’d owe Felicity a California roll if this all ended as they hoped – and then shivered. _If._ He turned onto another side street, heading for a nearby building with fire escapes near the upper windows of the old warehouse. It only took a few leaping steps to get even with the windows. Oliver zipped his leather jacket, pulled the collapsible bow out of Felicity’s messenger bag, shot an arrow into the bricks above him, and swung with a crash through the warehouse window.

Oliver hit the floor with a roll, watching for opportunities to take cover as he came to his feet. The room had been some kind of office, based on its size, but the furniture was gone. It was a good place to wait quietly and listen.

At that thought, Felicity’s voice came through the com link in his ear. “Hey! Easy on the wrists! I’m getting carpal tunnel syndrome.”

There was the sound of a door opening, and a woman’s voice. Samantha was there, too.

Felicity continued. “First floor of an abandoned warehouse, huh. That... is not the most original kidnapping in the world.”

Oliver gritted his teeth at the sound of her breath coming more raggedly. There was a delicate balance between getting the information to him and antagonizing the attackers, and Felicity was already getting close to the wrong side.

But Felicity’s next question was slightly closer to the script. “So, what brings you all the way from Star City? I could recommend a few good restaurants. Russian, maybe?”

“Shut up.” The voice was male. Fairly young? Not Saltanov.

“Red Sox games are always fun, though at the last minute you’d probably need to get a scalped ticket. You should take William to a Red Sox game. I bet he’d love it. Both of you might enjoy it, too.”

“I said, shut UP!”

She was improvising a bit too much, but that was the information he needed. Samantha, William, two kidnappers, at least one male. Oliver peeked out of the room, found the second-floor corridor empty, and started searching for a way to the main floor.

“I’m guessing you don’t know a lot about me? Because anyone would tell you that I talk. A lot. And I’ve been in enough kidnapping-slash-murder-slash-damsel-in-distress situations to know that you want to talk, too. Everyone has a story.”

Oliver found a staircase and hurtled down it. 

The kidnappers were silent.

“Fine. I can ask questions. Like, where is Nicholas Salt? I was sure he was part of this.”

The second captor snorted. Higher pitched than the first. Could be a woman. “He’s a small-time, wannabe mobster. He heard rumors about the mayor’s past, and thought he could turn it to his advantage. He came to me with a story, but he didn’t have the nerve to follow through.” It was definitely Anastasia’s voice. “How much do you really know about your fiancé, anyway?”

“Quite a bit, actually. Including what he did in Russia.” There was a pause, as if Felicity was gauging Anastasia’s reaction. “I know he’s done horrible things. Really horrible things. I also know that he’s pretty hard on himself about them. I’d say he’s his own worst critic, but the zip ties around my wrists suggest I might be wrong about that.” That was the information that Oliver needed, but Felicity continued. “But I don’t think that a person should be judged forever on the basis of something bad that he did in the past. What matters is the choices he makes now – the choices all of us make now. We all get to choose to be a hero or a villain, every moment. And I’ve been proud of the choices that he’s been making.”

Oliver felt something warm inside his chest at that, but Felicity’s speech didn’t have the same effect on Anastasia.

“Well, I don’t find his sins quite so forgivable. Do you know the story behind that photo that I sent you?” Anastasia’s voice sounded as though she was moving closer to Felicity.

“Why don’t you tell me? I mean, I’m just sitting here, zip-tied to a chair with William and Samantha. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

Oliver moved through the shadows on the first floor, arrow nocked as he looked around each support pillar and through each door.

“I spent a year in Russia when I was in college. I shared a room with Katya. She was the sister that I never had.”

“I don’t have a sister, either. Samantha?” Samantha made some kind of odd, confused noise. It sounded a bit distant from Felicity, as if William was seated between them. “I don’t think Samantha had a sister.”

“My parents were killed before I got to college. When I went to Russia, I found a new family. And then it was taken away. First when Katya got involved with that mobster, Vlad – he was already bad for her in college, and then she had his children and couldn’t get away from him. I had saved enough money to get her out of there... and then she was dead, too." 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your parents, and I’m sorry about Katya. But you don’t need to do this. Why not... I don’t know... volunteer at a battered women’s shelter or something? You don’t need to kill people for revenge. The past doesn’t tie your hands.”

That was the signal. Oliver found the door, but didn’t look through it yet. Instead, he pulled out a grappling hook arrow and nocked it.

Anastasia didn’t seem to be listening to Felicity. “Katya was Vlad’s mistress. She had nothing to do with his work with the mob. She didn’t need to be killed. But your Mr. Queen killed her anyway – her, and both of her kids. Just because she was connected to him. But that leaves me with a question.” She paused. Oliver wanted to look through the doorway to see what Anastasia was doing, but he forced himself to look away while he waited for his cue. “Which one of you should take her place? Felicity – I think I can call you Felicity – is the fiancée, but Samantha is...”

She was cut off by a bright flash and a loud bang. Oliver kept his eyes shielded for just a moment more, then spun towards the door and fired his arrow toward the rafters. He swung towards the group in the middle of the room, knocking over the man with his momentum and rolling to his feet beside Samantha.

Felicity was behind William, using her pocket scissors to cut through the zip-tie that held his wrists to the chair, whispering “Run!” with a gesture towards the door. Oliver used the head of an arrow to free Samantha’s wrists. Samantha grabbed William’s arm and dragged him towards the door when he stopped to stare at Oliver and Felicity.

Anastasia pulled out a revolver and pointed it at William. Felicity tossed something towards the door, and the room filled with smoke.

“Samantha, weave! Serpentine! Go!” Felicity called.

Oliver couldn’t tell whether Samantha understood, but he didn’t hear any cries after the gunshots went off, so he focused his attention on Anastasia instead. He grabbed one normal arrow, shot the gun from her hand, pulled out a second arrow, and moved towards her.

“So now you’re going to kill me, too,” she said. 

He let the arrow fly. Anastasia stumbled as a wire wrapped around her legs. “No,” Oliver said. “I made a different choice.”

She laughed. “You’re going to let me go to trial, Mr. Mayor? Star City’s social media will be fascinated by your ‘hobby.’”

Oliver shook his head. “Someone else is coming to deal with you.” _Threatening the child of the head of ARGUS is a bad idea_ , Oliver thought, but he didn’t say that out loud. He wondered how this was going to go over with Lyla’s superiors – he knew from long experience that even Waller had someone pulling her strings – but it wasn’t his problem for now.

His problem was to find Anastasia’s silent accomplice, and then check on William and Samantha, and then complement Felicity on how well she had learned the zip-tie trick.

A hiss through the com told him that it was going to be a bit more complicated.

“Where do you think you’re going?” whispered a male voice, close enough to Felicity’s com that he might as well have been whispering into Oliver’s ear, not Felicity’s. “I thought you wanted to hear all of our stories.” 

“Well,” Felicity gasped, as if something was constricting her throat, “I was actually ok with only hearing from Anastasia. You’re just the muscle, right?”

The voice chuckled darkly. “What, like your boyfriend is just the muscle? No, I signed on for a reason.”

The voices were too quiet to hear outside the com link, and Oliver couldn’t see the bodies through the smoke. 

“And that reason is...?” Felicity’s voice was still half-choked.

“I grew up in Havenrock,” the voice whispered. “I got a letter from you, offering a scholarship.”

Felicity made a sound that might have been a sob.

“The guys on reddit gave me shit about it,” he said. “Anti-free-speech scholarship, they said.”

“Anti... you mean the anti-doxxing code?” There hints of Felicity’s Loud Voice, except choked off, as if something was against her neck.

“Yeah. But I took it, anyway. Needed the money. Then I went to Star City looking for a job at Palmer Tech – it wasn’t like I could go home for the summer, and I figured you owed me for pissing off my friends – and found out that you weren’t even running Palmer Tech any more. So I tried to find out more. There were lots of rumors about you, but I didn’t put the pieces together until I met Anastasia one night in a bar. She had figured out your fiancé’s history, and her buddy had just killed some guy outside an Italian restaurant.”

“Fontana,” Felicity whispered.

“Anastasia’s buddy had freaked out and was bailing on her. She didn’t know what to do next, so I helped her search for more information about your Mr. Queen. But I didn’t realize why you cared about Havenrock until I figured out who your friend Ms. Michaels works for.”

The voice got louder as he went on. Oliver tried to listen from the ear without the com, narrowed down a direction, and headed for the voice.

“My parents died in Havenrock. My best friend, who went home for his mother’s birthday, died in Havenrock. My baby sister died in Havenrock. Do you know how many people you killed?’’

“Twenty-three thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven. Thirty-eight, actually, if your friend was there. That must be the scholarship letter that was returned. Two thousand, three hundred and forty-three were kids. More than a thousand toddlers. Yes. I know how many people I killed.”

There. Oliver could see the shapes through the smoke. The young man was behind Felicity, holding something to her throat.

“You killed them. You didn’t even know their names.”

“I looked them up, after. And I think I know yours, based on your story – Marcus? I dream about them, the whole town, every night. If I had a time machine...” She gulped for a moment. Had she seriously thought about contacting Sara or Ray? Or Barry? “If I had a time machine, and I didn’t know that it’s an incredibly bad idea to mess with time... I would go back and fix it.”

Marcus didn’t seem to recognize how much thought she had given to the possibility. “You don’t care.”

Oliver was close enough to see the tears running down Felicity’s cheeks. _The fuck she didn’t care._ He stepped out of the smoke, nocked an arrow, and pointed it at the young man... Marcus? “Let. Her. Go.”

Marcus looked up, briefly surprised, but didn’t move his hand from Felicity’s neck. “Do you even know what she did? How could you want to marry this?”

Oliver glared at him. “Felicity Smoak is a fucking hero. You know how many people died. Do you know how many people she saved?” He looked at Felicity. “Millions in Monument Point. Billions in the entire world.”

“Heroes don’t kill people.”

Oliver shook his head. “Sometimes being a hero means making hard choices, and dealing with the consequences.”

Felicity moved slightly, subtly loosening Marcus’ grip around her neck. Before he could react, she tucked her chin and jabbed her pocket scissors into his leg. As he pulled back in pain, Oliver sent an arrow into his shoulder, and then a trick arrow that bound his legs. He toppled over, and Felicity stumbled away, looking relieved.

\-----

It didn’t take long for ARGUS agents to arrive and take Anastasia and Marcus away. Felicity was talking to William – showing him something on his phone, it appeared. Oliver hung back to talk to Samantha for a moment.

“What do you want to tell him?” He hesitated. “I mean, I showed up in street clothes with a bow. He’ll probably have questions.”

“I don’t know if he noticed,” Samantha said. “It was bright, and then smoky. And when we got outside, all he wanted to talk about was Felicity, and her trick with the zip ties. He kept asking how she did that.”

Sure enough, it looked like Felicity was showing William how to do the zip tie trick. Oliver shook his head. “I hope he never needs that.”

Samantha shook her head in turn. “Given everything since you showed up, I wouldn’t count on it.” She stopped Oliver before he could apologize, or protest – he wasn’t sure which he was about to do. “I’m not blaming you. Well, I am, but not more than I’m blaming myself.” She paused, watching William with Felicity. “She really is amazing.”

Oliver nodded as William rushed back towards them, dragging Felicity behind him. “Mom! Felicity fixed my phone so I can play Pokemon Go all the time without anyone following me!”

Felicity nodded. “It’s a simple hack. It should hide him from most GPS tracking, at least.” She frowned. “Not that it will help with... well, not with everyone.” Oliver knew she was talking about Malcolm. “And later, we’ll talk about keeping your personal information safe, even when you think people are friends, right?” She glanced at Samantha as William nodded enthusiastically. “If that’s all right?”

Samantha nodded. “That would be great. The internet is a scary place for this former history major.”

“Well, if you ever need a weird techie aunt to help, I’m happy. Not that I’m William’s aunt. Or anyone’s aunt. I don’t have any siblings. Which I guess you know, because...” Felicity gestured towards the warehouse.

“Thank you,” Samantha said again. “For everything.” She took William’s hand, and whispered something about ice cream. William’s face brightened, and they headed down the alley.

That left Oliver and Felicity.

Felicity looked a bit sheepish. “That didn’t quite go as I planned.”

Oliver smiled slightly. “It never does.”

Felicity nodded. “We’re alive. William and Samantha are alive. And they don’t even hate us. At least, I don’t think they hate us. So that should count as a win.”

“I think William has a bit of a crush on you,” Oliver said.

Felicity looked flustered. “I hope that’s ok. It’s kind of Oedipal, if you think about it.” She shook her head. “Not that I’m his mother. Or his stepmother. Or anything like that. And... you actually passed the Classics class you took, didn’t you?”

Oliver shrugged. “I read the Odyssey. That’s about it.”

“Oh. Well. Never mind, then.” Felicity squared her shoulders and started walking back toward the pilfered motorcycle. “As long as he develops safe online habits soon.”

Oliver followed her. “He will. He learned them from his hero.”

Felicity looked back at him and rolled her eyes. “You don’t need to say that any more, Oliver. There aren’t any villains around to listen.”

“I meant it,” Oliver said simply. “I wish I’d known that you felt like that before. I know a little bit about feeling guilty.” 

Felicity looked up at him. “It IS your superpower.”

He was about to answer, but they had reached the motorcycle.

The roar of the engine was too loud for talking all the way back to the hotel. 

\----- 

Felicity walked into the room and kicked off her shoes. “Ugh. I need a shower. There are weird warehouse cobwebs and flash-bang powder in my hair. Plus, you know, the creepy almost-choked-by-an-asshole factor.”

Oliver chuckled. “You can go first. I’ll wait.”

Felicity bit her lip and looked at him, then set her jaw. “Want to join me?”

Oliver knew he should ask about where the boundaries were, about what all of this meant. But he was already hard, almost painfully hard, and he couldn’t make the words come out.

He pulled his leather jacket off his arms as Felicity stripped out of her shirt. Oliver wanted to watch every moment, see every inch of her skin, familiar and changed, scars that were white now, tan lines in new and different places. But at the same time, he wanted to be naked. And touching her. And so he stripped as fast as he could and followed her (glorious, so-much-missed) ass into the bathroom.

Felicity set her glasses to the side and bent in front of the tub to adjust the water, waiting for the right temperature before switching on the shower. Oliver grabbed shampoo and body wash out of the bag on the sink, then pulled the curtain closed behind him.

She leaned back under the water, eyes closed, water tracing slow lines down her neck. Oliver stood and watched, shampoo in his hands, until she turned to let him rub it into her hair. He untangled the curls carefully – they were longer than he remembered, harder to separate without pulling on them – and massaged the shampoo into her scalp. Her roots were blonder than the last time he had done this, but the little moan that she made as he dug his fingers into her scalp was the same. When he pulled his fingers away, she turned slowly, putting her hair back into the stream of the water, and pulled his face down to hers.

Oliver wanted to kiss her slowly, to taste what she had been eating and to feel every new spot where her lips chapped when she bit them. But she moaned again as he pulled her lip into his mouth, and he couldn’t stand it any more. He kissed her hard, tongue tangling with hers, leaning forward to get a better angle on her mouth, hands on her back and her ass, pulling her in while pushing her back with his entire body.

The water shut off.

Felicity pulled away, breathing hard, and gestured vaguely at the shower knob. He reached for it – his hand was already behind her – and pulled it back on. Then he backed away, slowly, reluctantly, and squirted body wash into his hand.

Felicity turned her back to him again, and he slid the slick soapiness across her shoulders, kneading where they were tight, then down her back, pausing to memorize the changes to the scars from her surgeries, washing each part with soap and then water and, occasionally, with lips. When he reached her ass, she turned, eyes still closed, letting his hands slide across her belly. He caressed the bullet scar there, then ran his hands up her sides, across her breasts, watching her breath hitch and her nipples tighten before he lowered his mouth to them.

She pulled away. “Your turn.” Her voice was about an octave lower than usual.

Oliver kept his eyes open, even as she muttered about watching for the shampoo, just staring into her eyes as she reached up to massage shampoo into his scalp. She had to nudge him three times before he would turn to let her wash his back, and even then he kept looking over his shoulder as she ran her soapy fingers along each ridge of his scars. When she switched back to his front, it was a glorious kind of torture, looking down at the wet strands of her hair as she brushed his pecs, his nipples, each scar and each ridge of his abs until she slowly ran her fingers along his very erect penis.

He growled and pushed her back, kissing her again, until she squeaked as her back hit the soap tray. “This tub is too small for all of this,” she muttered, running her hands along his sides. “The bed would be better.”

Oliver agreed, and scooped her up to lift her out of the tub. She squeaked again, and he laughed as he set her down and grabbed a pair of towels. Felicity took one and dabbed briefly at his chest before wrapping it loosely around his shoulders, then rubbed hers on her hair before reaching for his hand and pulling him out of the bathroom and towards the bed.

They tossed the towels onto the end of the bed, carefully away from the sleeping areas, grinning at the way that both of them remembered the etiquette. Felicity crawled onto the bed, sat back against the headboard, and watched with a kind of aroused glee as he crawled towards her and leaned down to kiss her again. Oliver nuzzled against her neck, looking for the spot that would make her writhe and curse, then traced a wandering route down her chest, rubbing with his chin and then licking, until he reached the crease at the top of her thighs. She spread her legs apart, muttering something barely coherent, as Oliver slipped one finger, then two between her damp folds. He had barely started to lap and suck at her clit when she tightened around his fingers, swearing incoherently. He lapped up the wetness and smiled.

When she caught her breath, she gasped, “I can feel you smiling down there.”

He chuckled onto her clit, and she shivered again. “I love the way you curse when you come.”

She muttered something and rolled to the side, dangling off the bed to get something from her messenger bag. When she rolled back, she had a condom in her hand. Oliver raised an eyebrow at that.

“You never know,” she argued, as she unwrapped it and slipped it onto him. And although he wanted to ask more questions, about why she would pack condoms, and whether she had an actual secret stash of condoms stored in the bunker, but her fingers ran along his cock, and he lost all his words.

She must have wrapped her leg around him and positioned herself beneath him, because next thing he knew, his cock was sliding into her, all slickness and fluttering warmth, and he was thrusting, trying to focus on hitting her sensitive spot, reaching between them to rub her clit, and then she was shuddering around him and he was shouting something, probably her name, as he came inside her.

\-----

Felicity collapsed back onto the bed. Oliver rolled onto his side and watched her lie there, face flushed and eyes half closed.

“Mmmmm. I don’t remember it being that good. So much better than my vibrator.”

Oliver huffed a laugh. “You have a vibrator?”

“Mmm-hmmm. Lyla took me shopping for one. She said that every woman who breaks up with the love of her life needs one. Better than getting into a bad rebound relationship for the sex.” She blinked. “And you did not need to know that about your best friend’s wife.”

Oliver noted that she didn’t try to deny any other part of that, but, even wet and naked and thoroughly spent, he wasn’t ready to push things. Though smaller confessions might be ok. “I just used my hands. And, umm. Your shampoo.”

Felicity turned and poked him. “I knew I had more shampoo left in that bottle!”

Oliver just smiled and shrugged.

She watched him for a moment, then smiled, too. “If we’re doing after-sex confessions,” she started, and he laughed softly, remembering late nights in Bali. “I, umm, meant what I said. To Anastasia. About not defining people by their pasts.”

He held his breath, watching her carefully. Was she really saying...

She looked at him, like she was waiting for him to respond.

Oliver tried to fit the words together. “Do you just mean about killing...?”

Felicity shook her head. “About... everything.” She looked away, then back at him, with that determined look on her face that he both loved and feared. “About trust. And lies. And working together.”

Oliver’s heart was beating so loudly that he didn’t know if Felicity would hear his voice over it. “You mean...?”

“I miss this,” she said. “I miss you.” She looked away again for a second. “I’m still afraid... afraid of things you haven’t told me, afraid that someday I won’t do enough or won’t be enough, afraid that someday I’ll wake up and find out that you’ve left forever to fight some battle that I never even knew about, or that you’ll give me up for my own good, or for someone else’s good, or because you’ve got yet another life on your conscience that you think you need to sacrifice yourself for.” She paused. “Afraid that I would never get my heart back again after.”

Oliver bent his head. “Felicity...”

She reached over and pulled his chin up. “But I don’t want to be afraid to try. Maybe not with marriage yet – I’m scared to mess that up, and we should probably get to the point where we don’t need villains as relationship counselors. But sex. Definitely more sex.”

Oliver nodded. “Sex is fine. Sex is... more than fine.” He shouldn’t have been getting hard again already, but they were lying in bed talking about sex and vibrators. “And...” He hesitated. Yes, they were naked in bed, talking about maybe relationships, but he still wasn’t sure where the boundaries were. “If I can help with the nightmares...”

Felicity smiled and pulled him towards her. “Want to start tonight?”

Oliver nodded so fast that he felt like his head might come off.

“Good,” Felicity said. “But first you owe me a California roll.”

\-----

The next morning, while sitting in a little shop in Cambridge, drinking coffee, Felicity checked in on social media.

“Don’t look at Twitter,” Felicity said, putting her hand on his arm. “Star City is speculating about what we’re doing in Boston. There’s a rumor that we’ve eloped.”

Oliver picked up his phone.

“Curtis texted me and said that Paul’s Facebook group has a new pool. And there’s a new hashtag.”

Oliver looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.

“#Ringwatch.”

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally think this fic fails at successfully reuniting Oliver and Felicity - they didn't grow and change enough for things to work. But I'm leaving the end of the fic as it is. If it works for you, go with it. But I'm not at all happy with how it came out.


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity has had enough of Twitter's interference with her relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This epilogue was imagined in late season 5, and written during the summer after season 5.

“Oh HELL no.”

Oliver was awake and on his feet before Felicity had even dropped the phone.

"What's wrong?" he asked, reaching for a knife with one hand and his underwear with the other.

"I have HAD it with Twitter," Felicity said.

"You can always just delete the app," Oliver suggested.

"That won't make _this_ go away," she said, holding the phone out towards him.

 _#FelicityQueen_ , the hashtag said, below a blurry, blown-up image of a wedding ring.

Oliver smiled. "Yeah. It's frustrating that the paparazzi were in the restaurant last night. I thought we had a private room."

"That's not it," Felicity said. "Of course they got a photo of the ring. And of course they posted it." She pointed. "It's the hashtag."

Oliver read it again. He couldn't see anything wrong with it. "But you said 'yes,'" he said. "It will be true soon enough."

"Oliver." There was definitely a period at the end of his name. "I am not changing my name."

"You're not?" They hadn't talked about it, it's true. But Oliver had just assumed...

"Oliver. I like my name."

Oliver still couldn't figure out what was wrong. "I like your name, too." He smiled. "Felicity."

"No," Felicity said. "Smoak."

He looked back and shrugged.

"It's my mother's name. Not my father's name. My mother kept her name, and she gave it to me, and now it's my name, too." She stopped.

Was that all?

"But Felicity," Oliver said, "what about when we have kids? Won't it be confusing if we have two different last names?"

"First, no, this is the 21st century and lots of families have multiple last names," Felicity said. "And second, I don't want kids."

Wait. What?

Oliver stared at her. "You don't?"

"No," Felicity said.

"But you like kids," Oliver said.

"Not the same as having a baby myself," Felicity said. "I just don't see myself as a mother."

"But you'll be a _fantastic_ mother. You're great with Sara. You even help Lyla with her."

"It's not about whether I could be a fantastic mother," Felicity said. "It's about whether I want to be a mother, period."

Oliver frowned. "So you don't want me to tell William that I'm his father?"

"No, I think you should tell William," Felicity said. "But Samantha would still be William's mother. Not me."

"William thinks you're amazing," Oliver said. "And so do I."

"Still doesn't mean I need to have kids," Felicity said. "Oliver, you have a kid already. You don't need to have one with me."

"But..." Oliver was shaken. "I... I want to see your babies."

"Oliver," Felicity said. "This is important to me." 

He stared as she took off the ring.

"I love you," she said, "but we can't do this if you won't consider my choices."

With that, she grabbed her clothes and headed for the shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is an admission of my failure as a writer. I wanted to write a reconciliation fic that resolved the issues between Oliver and Felicity, and after watching season 5, I realized how badly I failed. The show didn't do everything I wanted - I'm worried that it will never give Felicity the chance to find her own purpose and define her own identity, despite the promising start with the Helix storyline - but it did a heck of a lot more than I did in this fic.
> 
> So I broke them up again. 
> 
> It feels like a horrific lie to pretend that the issues between Oliver and Felicity would just go away after a proposal or a wedding or a baby.
> 
> (Also, there are a lot of fics in which an unintentional baby comes into Oliver's and Felicity's relationship. And there are lots of stories that don't deal with kids at all. But to contemplate a child, and say "no"? That's so unacceptable in American society, but I want to keep that in the mix of possibilities for women. And Felicity seems like the right Arrow character to make that decision.)


End file.
